I See The Moon
by hctiB-notsoB
Summary: Gen. "While on the run, Bruce meets a young man who speaks to the moon. He's probably not quite the sanest friend Bruce could have made, but, well...beggers can't be choosers."
1. Prologue: Radishes and Wrackspurts

AN: This is more or less a tester chapter, just to see if I can do anything with this damn plot bunny and see if it can go anywhere.

Came about after having a chat with **Sleeping Moon** and seeing 'The Avengers' for the third time, and really, Bruce needs more love. As of now, it'll stay gen. I have no idea if I want to add a pairing or not.

I'm imagining this taking place not too long after 'The Incredible Hulk.' Marvel stalkers, keep in mind I know nothing about the comics and, while I will do my best to research, I am probably just going to make shit up as I go.

* * *

Prologue - In Which There Are Radishes And Wrackspurts

* * *

It was the voice that attracted him, first.

Okay, well, no. That sounded far too Harlequin Romance, so...no. More specifically, it was the language. He'd been traveling for only God knew how long now, always to the most remote of countries and villages. Which, coincidentally, also meant they were usually the most destitute and least traveled by tourists. So, hearing clear and precise English filter through the hustle and bustle of the Paraguay marketplace was a novelty that immediately caught his attention.

Tense and on alert, because English speakers usually seemed to mean that one of his military tails had caught up to him again, Bruce turned and scanned the area, quickly catching sight of the commotion.

A young man, no older than twenty Bruce would guess, was being quite eagerly accosted by a shop-keeper. The merchant was letting loose a string of obscenities, waving his clenched fist at the boy, who simply stood there, looking more than a little dazed and confused. The young man held out something in his hand and tried to negotiate, once more in English, clearly not understanding a lick of the Guarani profanity that was being hurled at him. All this seemed to achieve was a second round of verbal abuse.

It was the young man's expression, Bruce decided later.

He shouldn't. He really, _really_ shouldn't, because when one was Bruce Banner, fighting, yelling, stress, and anger were all things that were meant to be actively avoided these days. But, that little-boy-lost look on his face and the fact that Bruce hadn't heard his native language in what felt like years now had Bruce making his way over to the pair, where a circle of onlookers had surrounded them.

"What's the problem?" He asked, trying Spanish first, because he really didn't want to try to diffuse the situation in the broken Guarani he's managed to pick up.

"The little cheat is trying to give me fool's money," the shop-keep yelled, glaring at the boy.

He turned to face the boy, who was staring intently at Bruce's...ear? "Hey," Bruce said, waving his hand a little to try to get his attention. The young man continued to stare for a moment longer, before blinking and finally focusing on Bruce. "What are you trying to use, euros? Because this village is too small, you need guaranies."

The boy said nothing, only blinked once more and held out his hand to give Bruce a coin. A _gold_ coin. A heavy, solid, gold coin, he realized when it was dropped in his palm. It was Bruce's turn to blink, as he stared, shocked, at the precious metal that would likely equal a small fortune around these parts. The merchant, obviously, didn't think it was real, which was lucky for the boy. And what was he thinking, trying to use this for currency?

"What did he want to buy?" Bruce asked the shop-keep, who simply held out a white clay figurine of an owl, with a large and obvious crack down its right wing. Looking back at the boy skeptically, he saw, in place of the flighty look that hadn't left his face during the conversation, a sharp and hungry gaze that was fixed on the owl.

With a sigh, he asked for a price and dug out the required amount of coins from his pocket.

After the crisis was averted and the crowd dispersed, no longer interested in the foreigners, Bruce was able to relax a bit and bring his full attention to the boy he played good samaritan for.

The first things he noticed were the...turnips? Two of them, to be precise. Miniature sized and hanging from the boy's ears. It took him a moment to recover, but a few blinks and a small shake of the head cleared his mind enough to observe the rest of his companion. He was brunet and slender, much like Bruce himself, and he was pleased to note the rare occurrence of actually being taller than someone, having an inch or so on the boy. His clothes looked like little more than oversized rags on his body, and the satchel he was currently stowing the owl figurine in was patched over in multiple spots and worn down.

After carefully ensuring the owl's safety and security deep in the bag, bottle green eyes found Bruce and, once more, focused in on his left ear. Unless...? As casually as possible, Bruce slowly turned to look over his shoulder and check for whatever the boy may be staring at, while also keeping an eye on his strange associate. The boy didn't react, except to lean to the side as Bruce turned, trying to keep his ear in sight. Bruce turned back and the boy straightened up.

Pointing to the space next to Bruce's head, the boy said, "You should really do something about those wrackspurts." British accent, Bruce noted. His words were measured and careful, as if he wasn't quite used to having conversations aloud.

Bruce was starting to get a sneaking suspicion, but his mother always said first appearances often weren't what they seemed, so he reserved judgment. Instead, he gave the boy a look that he hoped was less nervous and more reassuring. "Right, I'll get on that. So, what might your name be?"

"Harry," the boy said simply.

Bruce waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. "Harry...?"

"Just Harry."

"Just Harry?" He questioned with narrowed eyes.

Harry didn't seem to mind his confusion or suspicious expression, and nodded at him decisively. "Just."

"Okay." Wary, but deciding he hadn't gone through all this trouble for nothing, Bruce offered his hand. "Just Harry, my name's Bruce."

The young man took his hand without a moment's hesitation. "Just Bruce?" He questioned seriously.

Lips quirking upwards in the closest thing to a smile he's been able to muster in months, Bruce nodded back at him. "Just Bruce."

"Just so," Harry said conclusively, turnips bouncing as he shook Bruce's hand.

Unable to help himself, he motioned to the strange earrings. "You do know you're wearing turnips, right?" He asked, just in case someone had managed to sneak the root vegetables on Harry's person without him knowing.

Harry stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, before recognition lit his eyes. "Radishes," he corrected.

Bruce accepted the correction, he'd always sucked at grocery shopping, but it certainly didn't clear anything up. He stared at Harry expectantly, after the silence continued for a couple more moments.

"They're from the moon," he said, as if it explained everything.

It didn't.

This was right around the time Bruce decided his new companion probably wasn't entirely sane.


	2. Shadows and Nargles

AN: Sorry, I forgot to mention where this takes place in the HP verse. Essentially, I imagine all of the books happened as they did, with no major events changing. Things just didn't _end_ the same. Honestly, I haven't really figured out what Harry's back story is here yet. I've only got a vague outline in my head.

And, as it says in the summary, Harry's...not quite _all there_. There's some explanation at the end of the chapter as to why (and I know, that's an awfully quick exposition, but I'm not really trying to build any mystery or drama here). But, I mean, come on, when you've been fighting battles since you were _eleven_ and come to practically engage in all out war when you're sixteen, that's bound to leave you at least a little off, isn't it?

I know Rowling's PG'ed the hell out of the books for us, and when I was a kid reading them I thought they were friggin' awesome adventures; but a decade or so later, looking at it with an adult's perspective, that shit would've been plain traumatizing. Seriously.

* * *

Chapter 1 - Where In Bruce Gains A Shadow And The Nargles Attack

* * *

"You're getting too much red in your head," Harry told Bruce, holding out a necklace of braided twine and corks. "You should be careful, or the nargles will find you."

He raised an eyebrow at the...unique jewelry, but took it all the same. "For me?"

Harry shrugged apologetically. "I couldn't find any radishes."

Bruce supposed he should be grateful for that. "Umm, well, thank you, Harry. This is very...nice."

"I only just got rid of the wrackspurts," his friend said, wagging a chiding finger at him. "I don't want to have to deal with nargles as well."

Bruce, Harry had declared not long after they'd met, had _a lot_ of wrackspurts in his head.

Unsure of how else he was meant to respond to that, he'd said he was sorry, he didn't mean to have them. Harry had simply waved away the apologies, explaining that special eyes were needed to see them, so it wasn't really Bruce's fault.

"You have special eyes, then?" Bruce had asked hesitantly.

Harry had shaken his head, with a sad smile. "No, not anymore. I lost them in the dark. But I can feel the wrackspurts fluttering and you've got a whirlwind in your brain. It's turning you periwinkle."

"...Periwinkle?"

"Not nearly as nice of a color as it sounds," Harry had informed him seriously. "Too dull, too quiet—it'll take the voice right out of you."

Luckily for Bruce, Harry knew just how to get rid of wrackspurts. The main method of extraction seemed to consist of Harry staring at him so intently, for so long, the poor boy ended up cross-eyed and Bruce couldn't hold back the laughter that had been bubbling up inside of him. Harry, thankfully, didn't seem offended by it and instead took Bruce's laughter as a sign of his victory. Of course, wrackspurts were persistent little bastards and Harry was going to have to stick close by to keep them away.

Bruce found he really didn't mind.

So, now, here they were, over a month later, in the little hovel Bruce had managed to find for them to call home.

While Bruce worked at the local factory to make their rent and buy food, Harry turned out to be quite the scavenger. Most days when Bruce came home, there would be fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs waiting in their makeshift kitchen. Bruce imagined that this must be how Harry had survived thus far, because the boy seemed more than a little incapable of interacting normally with people, never mind the fact that he didn't even know anything about the languages or currencies.

Along side the food he brought home, Bruce noticed that Harry also liked to collect...well, _things_. Anything, really. There didn't seem to be much of a pattern to what Harry took, except they were all broken. The dream catcher with half of its web gone; the deer antler that was cracked down the middle; the little jigsaw puzzle that Harry and him had put together, even though most of the cat's head was missing with the absent pieces.

Bruce watched as his friend settled his latest acquisition, a splintered crystal rock, on his shelf of collections, next to the toy lion with the missing leg. Harry stared at it intently, smiling to himself and humming as he brushed his fingers lovingly over each trinket.

Giving a small smile of his own, Bruce slipped the cork necklace over his head. He felt the anxiety, that had been steadily rising in him for the past few days, lighten as the largest cork settled firmly over his heart.

* * *

...

* * *

Their peace only lasted another nine days, before Bruce's instincts were once again proven true.

Bruce was certain he'd caught a flash of camouflage fatigues disappearing around a corner the other day and ever since, he's felt eyes on him where ever he went. He's been tense and wired, and he's certain the only thing that's been keeping him calm enough to go about his day was Harry's almost continuous humming.

It was just before dawn, however, when Bruce was awoken by Harry sitting next to him on his bed, shaking him. "The nargles are coming," his friend whispered urgently.

"What?" Bruce tried to shake off the fuzziness that always came with first waking up. He wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but one look at Harry's wide-eyed and terrified face dispelled that desire.

"Nargles. They're coming here," Harry said, stressing each word and, Bruce noticed, clutching his satchel desperately.

A quick glance around confirmed that Harry had packed away his collection and, it looked like, most of their food. Despite his words, Harry had never looked as clear minded to Bruce as he did now. Given that his own instincts had been shouting at him for a while now, Bruce decided that it wouldn't be that far off of an assumption to think that Harry's had noticed something as well. Always better to be safe than sorry, anyway, wasn't it?

Unfortunately, Bruce only made it out of bed and two steps towards the emergency duffel bag he always had packed, before soldiers were breaking down their front door.

A second later, half a dozen more came in through the windows.

It was chaos, and it quickly had Bruce's heart racing. There was shouting and orders and bright lights shining in his eyes and guns being pointed at him from every direction. Outside, he could hear the familiar whirl of a couple of helicopters and see their search lights making the whole street glow. They were pulling out all the stops this time.

They'd been watching, of course they had, because the first thing they did to gain the leverage they knew they needed was grab Harry.

What they obviously hadn't been expecting, however, was for Harry to fight. And fight he did. Harry kicked and punched and elbowed, and even tried a little clawing and biting for good measure. Against armored and armed soldiers, he wasn't going to win, but they were certainly struggling to contain him, while Bruce's own captors kept their guns trained on him to keep him from interfering.

That worked just fine, until Bruce heard Harry's sharp cry of pain.

Bruce watched as blood dripped down Harry's neck from his ear, where the radish earring had been ripped out in the struggle.

First, Bruce felt the heat. His own blood boiling, trying to burn him from the inside out. Then, the stretch of his skin, as his muscles bulged and strengthened. Darkness started to creep in around the edge of his vision as the soldiers' shouting took on a frantic air, and he felt a vicious, vindictive satisfaction surge up inside of him.

And, with that first rumbling roar, everything went black for Bruce as the other guy took complete control.

* * *

...

* * *

When Bruce woke up, it was to deft fingers carding through his hair soothingly and a soft, dreamy voice.

"_I see the moon, the moon sees me, under the shade of the old oak tree_."

Slowly—ever so slowly, as it always was after one of his 'episodes'—the memories came back to him. The nargles, the soldiers, the shouting...Harry's blood.

"_Please let the light that shines on me, shine on the one I love_."

Cautiously, he opened his eyes and was greeted to the sight of a clear night sky peeking out between a thick canopy of leaves and branches.

The fingers and voice both stopped, and then Harry's face was peering down at him, brows furrowed in concern. "Did you know you turn green?"

Bruce blinked.

"A nice deep, bright green, too. Like broccoli," Harry continued into Bruce's silence.

"Yeah... About that..." Bruce groaned as he finally sat up, taking stock of the situation.

He was naked, of course, wearing nothing except the cork necklace that had somehow survived his transformation, but Harry had covered him in a blanket. From what he could hear, or rather, couldn't hear, they were deep in the middle of the forest, far away from any civilization. In fact, Bruce couldn't hear anything, not even any animals. The other guy must have scared away everything for miles, except for Harry. He couldn't help but wonder how long the boy had been sitting here, alone and in the dark, waiting for Bruce to wake up.

"Listen, Harry, I'm sorry. I should have never allowed any of this to happen, I shouldn't have put you in danger, and I definitely should have told you what you were getting into, hanging around me. But, I really think it would be safer for you now if we went our separate ways." Bruce sighed, staring forlornly at the ground.

"Oh, I don't mind you looking like broccoli, Bruce. I like broccoli. It makes you big and strong." Harry paused and considered this. "You must have eaten a lot of broccoli one day."

This was going to be harder than he'd thought. "No, not quite." Placing a firm hand on Harry's shoulder, the one _not_ covered in blood, Bruce tried to catch the unfocused gaze and impress upon his young friend how important this conversation was. "Harry, I don't just turn green, okay. You saw me, right? I get big and scary and I turn into a monster, Harry. I'm dangerous."

Instead of showing an ounce of fear or concern, however, Harry only shook his head firmly. "Not to me. Not to me or anyone else. You were only angry at the nargles—which I think, really, is a good thing." Harry leaned in close to confide, "I didn't much like those nargles. Not at all."

"I don't either," Bruce agreed, huffing a laugh. "But Harry, really, you are in danger around me. I may not have been the one to hurt you, but you were hurt because of me. Do you understand?"

Bruce was relieved to see some of the dazed look leave Harry's expression, as he seemed to consider Bruce's words seriously. He stared at Bruce—_into_ him, it felt like—intently, before moving his bright eyes upwards, to the crescent moon above them, clutching his satchel like a safety blanket.

"I had something..._extra_ inside of me, too," Harry whispered, rubbing at the scar on his head. "Something bad. It wasn't mine, wasn't me. It was the bad man's...it was him. He put some of him inside of me. He took it back, though. Broke it, then took it. But, when he broke the him inside of me, he broke some of the me that was beside the him, you see?"

He didn't. Bruce didn't see at all, but he also couldn't interrupt. Not when Harry sounded so soft and looked so sad, and his mind was obviously a world away.

"The Lion was angry, and he roared, and he hunted the streets. But that didn't fix me. The Owl was angry too, but she was quiet, and she hunted the books. But that didn't fix me, either." Harry lowered his eyes from the moon, and turned to rest his heavy gaze on Bruce. "The Moon, though... The Moon smiled at me. The Moon said, everything can be broken, but everything can be fixed, too. You just need to find the right piece."

It wasn't the moon, Bruce realized for the first time, that Harry had been talking about for the last month. It was _The Moon_. It was someone from Harry's past—someone who had helped Harry to not be as broken as he had probably once been—someone who had helped him become this kind young man who collected broken things with the intention of finding their pieces and who wasn't nearly as oblivious to the world as Bruce had mistakenly assumed he was.

And Bruce, who was broken himself, fit right alongside his broken friend, didn't he?

Bruce stood, wrapping the blanket around his waist as he did, and stretched his sore body. "All right," he said with an air of finality. "Which way do you think we should head?"

Grinning brightly, Harry stood with him and pointed to the invisible horizon through the trees. "East."

"East?"

Harry nodded. "Did you know the moon rises in the east, same as the sun?"

Chuckling, he shook his head. "Actually, I didn't. I'd never thought about it before."

Bruce relaxed as they began walking, letting Harry's chattering ease him into a now familiar comfort, as the boy spoke up to The Moon, telling her all about his latest adventure.

And, Bruce supposed, if he looked closely, the crescent shape in the sky really did look like a smile, didn't it?


	3. Colors and Plimpies

AN: Okay, so - a couple of points to clear up:

Yes, Harry can still do magic...it's just not really going to be the way you all are thinking. There's a reason for it, I promise.

No, the Hulk did not hurt Harry, and I'm really not sure why you guys are surprised about that. Like I said before, I don't know anything about the comics, maybe it's different in those. But in the movies, Bruce has never _intentionally_ harmed an innocent person while transformed. Sometimes, they've gotten hurt because of the damage caused, but he's only ever gone after the people that were attacking or trying to capture him, and has actually gone out of his way to protect those he recognized as someone he cared for.

And, thank you **Katie**, for giving me the lengthiest, and most constructive and considerate review I've ever had. You also brought up a very good point about adding a pairing. Because of Harry's mental instability, it's debatable on whether or not he's in the right state of mind where he's _capable_ of even consenting to a non-platonic relationship. I agree with you, and it's my personal opinion that I would like to keep this gen.

That being said, though, I would also like to take the readers into account before making a final decision. So, if you guys could head on over to my profile and participate in the poll I've set up, I'd be grateful.

* * *

Chapter 2 - When Bruce Doesn't See The Colors And Harry Can't See Plimpies

* * *

While he may not know much about the moon, Bruce was pretty well versed on the stars. After waking up one too many times in the middle of nowhere, he made it a habit to study the maps of whatever country he'd settled into, as well as the position of the stars and sun.

For whatever reason, the other guy had decided not to wander too far off this time. Bruce and his bare feet were quite grateful for this. Harry may have remembered to pack food before he woke Bruce up and decided to go trailing off after a giant green monster, but clothes and shoes hadn't made it on his list of priorities. At least Harry was still wearing his sleeping clothes, so he didn't have to worry about him getting too cold.

Soon enough, he found the Paraguay River and, if they weren't able to find a road and his estimations were right, they'd probably be able to follow it to San Antonio and make it there just after morning.

"Okay," Bruce sighed as he sat down against a tree and began tearing strips off the blanket tied around his waist. "First of all, have you ever been hiking before, Harry?"

Harry plopped down in front of Bruce and stared at him blankly.

"Right. I'll take that as a 'no.'" Bruce grabbed Harry's ankles and tugged his feet into his lap. His friend watched with avid interest as he carefully cleaned away the debris clinging to the calloused skin and wrapped the straps of thick cloth around his feet to offer some semblance of protection. "I really wish you would have at least remembered to put on shoes before you decided to follow a mutant into the jungle."

"Is that a new rule?" Harry questioned as he wiggled his toes in his new bindings.

Bruce nearly went to roll his eyes, before he stopped himself and thought about it. Actually... "Yes, Harry, that is officially one of our rules. If I ever turn green again, you have to put on your shoes before you follow me."

Harry wrinkled his nose, making his distaste for the rule and shoes in general apparent, but nodded in acceptance as he took his covered feet back from Bruce's lap.

"Alright then," Bruce continued as he began wrapping up his own feet. "The key to hiking, Harry, is pacing. We're going to have to walk for a long time and we don't want to get tired too quick. So, we're going to follow the river down to the city, and we're going to have to walk at a steady pace and rest a lot. No running around or exploring. Now, what did you pack before you woke me up?"

In response, Harry pulled a couple of liter bottles of water and what looked to be the rest of the fruit from their kitchen out of his bag. That should be plenty to last them on their trek, but Bruce had hoped there would've been more water. It was too much of a danger to chance running out before they got to the city, but he wanted to clean Harry's torn ear. The risk of infection was high in this environment. He would have to get plenty of antibiotics for him later.

Bruce took one of the bottles and an apple for himself, pushed the other bottle and a pear over to Harry, and packed away the rest of their food again. "Okay. We'll eat, drink, and rest up. Then, we'll start walking. Any questions?"

Harry's hand shot up, like a child in a classroom.

"Yes Harry?" Bruce asked with a small smile.

The hand that had been in the air swung down to point to the river. "May I go looking for gulping plimpies?"

Bruce really should be used to questions like that from Harry by now, but they still never failed to make him pause. "Plimpies?"

"The gulping sort," Harry confirmed, nodding. "I've been told they make horrid soup. I'd really like to give it a try."

"No."

Harry pouted.

"No," Bruce repeated firmly. "In fact, we will be staying as far away from the water as we can." It would be just their luck, if some friendly little caiman or anaconda decided to come out and play.

Harry stared forlornly out at the water, but stayed put.

Even as his friend did as he asked and began nibbling on the fruit, Bruce was sure he could see the wheels turning in Harry's mind. He may not be entirely sane, and he certainly didn't seem to have an ounce of self-preservation instinct, but Harry was far too crafty for his own good sometimes.

He was definitely going to have to keep a close eye on him.

* * *

...

* * *

Bruce was being selfish.

He understood that and he hated himself a little for it. Because even if he didn't come to directly be a threat, it sure as hell wasn't safe to ever be around him.

A month ago it could be excused. They were too far away from the major cities, which Bruce did his best to avoid anyway, and they had no money for traveling. So, he couldn't exactly send Harry back to his own country and he _definitely_ couldn't leave him alone in a remote town in the middle of the Amazon to fend for himself.

Now, though... Now, knowing that at this very moment, Harry was likely being put on the radar of every government organization tracking Bruce—knowing that they would be perfectly willing to hunt and capture the boy just to get to Bruce... He didn't know if Harry had friends or family looking for him, if they were searching desperately for the lost young man. He didn't know what exactly was wrong with Harry, if maybe he needed a doctor or medicine.

What he was perfectly aware of, however, was that Harry did need more than what Bruce could provide him with as a fugitive running through the wilds of South America.

Bruce was being selfish and greedy, but God, he's been so alone for so long and he's never felt as comfortable with anyone since his accident as he did with Harry. And didn't it say something, that the only person in the world he seemed to be able to find acceptance with was mentally unbalanced?

His spiraling thoughts were promptly cut off by a sharp poke to his ribs. "Ow!"

Unperturbed by the glare Bruce was sending him, Harry scowled right back. "You're letting the wrackspurts back in! You're turning colors right in front of me!"

Panicked, Bruce brought up one of his hands, searching it for any tinges of green. It was covered in his normal lightly tanned skin, though, and he turned to raise a questioning brow at Harry before he remembered. "Oh. The periwinkle, right?"

"Not a good color in you at all," Harry said solemnly.

"Uh huh. And what is a good color for me then? Broccoli green?" Bruce asked, laughing a little.

"Don't be silly, Bruce, you're outside colors don't make your inside colors," Harry smiled back at him, apparently quite happy to hear that little laugh. Taking a moment to consider Bruce's question, his unfocused eyes glazed over just a bit more. "No, not green. You should really try to be more purple."

"Purple?"

Harry nodded seriously. "Byzantine would be good for you. Like the empire. Because it's got a lot of room for all the red in your head. You need to mix it with more blues though. The bright ones, not the pale ones."

Bruce suspected there might actually be some sort of method to Harry's madness, but he's yet to see it.

* * *

...

* * *

It was almost noon when San Antonio finally came into view, and Bruce nearly sobbed with relief.

His feet were sore and he kept getting poked by sticks and rocks. The heat was steadily rising and his skin was clammy from the humidity. And, honestly, he wasn't nearly as recovered from his latest transformation as he'd like to be.

While it seemed like Harry may be half Energizer Bunny, Bruce was tired and miserable. So, when he had them stop for one final rest just outside the city, and he sat down and leaned back against the log, he found himself pretty helpless against his drooping eyelids.

It was only for a moment.

Bruce was _positive_ he'd only fallen asleep for a moment. The sun hadn't even moved, so it couldn't have been longer than a couple of minutes.

So, where the hell could Harry have gone?

He wasn't in any of the surrounding area that Bruce could see and he wasn't responding to Bruce's calls. Given Harry's love of heights, Bruce had even gone around checking the trees, but he couldn't find him any—

Plimpies.

Shit.

Bruce ran for the river bed, half hoping that he was wrong. He wasn't, of course, because there was Harry, wading waist deep into the Paraguay River. Bruce's heart jumped and skipped a beat when he caught sight of the long, scaly creature swimming in front of Harry.

Making sure to keep his breathing deep and even, quickly leveling out his pulse, Bruce slowly made his way down to the water's edge. It wasn't an anaconda, at least. Oh no, just a five foot long Mussurana. As far as venomous snakes go, Bruce supposed Harry chose one of the better ones to become acquainted with.

Once he reached the water and was in plain view of Harry and the snake, Bruce's anxiety sky-rocketed when the snake reared back and hissed, looking rather angry and ready for an attack.

Then, Harry hissed back.

"Harry," Bruce called out, his voice calm and even, and not at all like how he was feeling.

Harry turned and blinked at Bruce, obviously surprised to see him there, and looking not unlike a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Would you mind slowly backing away from the snake and getting out of the water?"

Giving one last hiss to the reptile, Harry slowly crept out of the water, feet shuffling as he walked over to Bruce. "I was just asking her to help me look for the gulping plimpies..."

Bruce sighed and grabbed Harry's hand, pulling him into the woods and far away from the river.

"She said she would," Harry mumbled.

"Harry," Bruce groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the tension headache he felt coming on. "I'm sure she was a very nice snake, Harry, but I swear one of these days you're going to give me a heart attack."

Harry stared at him, wide-eyed, and looked down at Bruce's chest as if he expected said organ to jump out and declare war.

"Uh... Never mind." He steered them towards the city and started walking. "Come on. We've got a lot of things to do and no money to do them with. And they're usually a lot harder for me to accomplish when I don't have any pants either."

"Oh." Harry stopped to rummage through his satchel, before pulling out a gold coin, _another_ solid gold coin, and handing it to Bruce. "Here you go."

Bruce stared. "Where do you keep getting these things?" The first coin, with Harry's permission, Bruce had melted down and sold to give them a generous emergency fund. Unfortunately, said fund had been stashed away in the emergency duffel bag...which they had left behind.

Harry dug a little deeper into his bag and took out a small pouch. Which, Bruce opened to find, was filled with quarter sized coins made of gold, silver, and bronze.

"Okay," Bruce said slowly, trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. "I'll rephrase my question. Where did you get _these_ from?"

"From goblins," Harry replied.

Of course. Because where else would someone get a couple of pounds of precious metals? Bruce looked around them, just to make sure there weren't any large, green, warty creatures coming out from behind the trees.

Harry laughed at him. "Oh, there aren't any here. Trust me, I've looked all over for them."

"Huh. I thought it was leprechauns that were supposed to give you gold?" Bruce asked, and Harry laughed again.


	4. Stories and Powers

AN: For **Nitpicker** - Good catch! Harry most definitely can not speak parseltongue. But, keep in mind...he's a little insane, at the moment and doesn't quite know that. Remember _'the snake reared back and hissed.'_ That's an aggressive action. Harry was not having a friendly conversation with the snake. Well, actually, Harry wasn't having a conversation at all. The snake wanted to bite him. And probably would have, if Bruce hadn't gotten him out when he did.

Sorry about not being clear enough on that. Being vague is a bad habit of mine. I always just kind of expect people to know things, but then I forget that not everyone is living in my head.

Also, the last bit was a _bitch_ to get out for some reason, so I'm sorry if it seems like the writing is a little forced and/or just not very good.

PS: I accidentally all the angst. My apologies.

PPS: **Urfan**, I did have some big rant planned for you at first, but then I decided your grammar tells me all I need to know about your intellect and you quite literally mean nothing to me. So, yeah, not worth the effort or waste of space. Shoo fly.

* * *

Chapter 3 - Where In Stories Are Told And Powers Unfold

* * *

"I know it's uncomfortable, Harry, but I need you to stay still."

Harry squirmed.

"Harry!" Bruce pointed the surgical scissors at him threateningly. "Seriously, I'm going to end up taking your ear off your head instead of these stitches."

His friend stilled at those words and Bruce quickly took advantage of it, before Harry started acting like a toddler again.

Bruce had managed to clean and stitch Harry's ear in San Antonio, but with it being so soon after one of his episodes, they had to stay far below the radar. Of course, since the soldiers knew that Harry had been injured, this meant avoiding the hospitals. He did what he could to get the strongest ointments available, but Bruce hadn't been able to get his hands on any oral antibiotics.

As he'd promised Harry, they headed east, quickly making their way to southern Brazil and bribing their passage onto a cargo ship heading for South Africa.

By the time they'd reached the country, however, Harry had developed a nasty fever.

They found refuge in a nearby medical camp at the Namibian border, where they gave Harry the medicine he needed and allowed them to stay while his friend recovered. In exchange Bruce offered his own skills, giving them aid that they were in desperate need of. He may not have been a medical doctor, but in his search for his own cure, he'd become very knowledgeable in anatomy and biology, and the other doctors were more than willing to teach him what he didn't know.

Now, as he removed the last stitch from Harry's ear and gently wiped away the interstitial fluid, Bruce couldn't help but wonder if maybe he'd found something of a lost calling. It felt..._nice_, being able to help people, especially after all the damage he's caused each time he's lost control of the other guy.

"Alright," he said, patting Harry's knee, almost wishing he had a lollipop to give him, just to complete the image. "You're good as new, buddy."

Well, almost, Bruce thought to himself, eyeing his friend's scarred lobe.

When Harry didn't move, didn't so much as blink, Bruce frowned and leaned back on his stool to try and catch his eye. "Harry?"

Harry—twitchier than a rabbit Harry, who was practically the personification of kinetic energy—was staring off at the wall behind Bruce, his body as still as a statue. Only his glazed eyes were moving, flickering back and forth as if in the middle of a dream.

Waving his hand in front of Harry and snapping his fingers got no response. "Harry!" Bruce grabbed his shoulder and give him a little shake.

It seemed to take a moment of mental stumbling, but Harry's eyes lost some of their blank look and began to finally refocus on Bruce. "Hi."

Bruce let out a small, relieved chuckle. "Hey. You okay? What was that?"

"I was remembering," Harry shrugged. "Something from before the dark."

His eyebrows climbed upwards in surprise at that. Bruce didn't really know what Harry's 'darkness' was. He didn't know what had caused it or when it had happened. All he really knew was that most of Harry's memories from before it were, well, nothing but darkness. "What did you remember?"

"The mirror," Harry replied, reaching up to tug on his lobe nervously.

Bruce grabbed his hand and gently pulled it away from the scarred skin. "What about the mirror, Harry?"

"The mirror lost an ear once. That was sad. But then, the mirror lost his reflection. That was sadder." Harry reached his other hand up to caress his remaining radish earring mournfully.

Normally, he did pretty well with puzzling out Harry's addled speech, but this one was lost on him. "I'm sorry, Harry," Bruce sighed and gave Harry's hand a comforting squeeze. The apology was as much for not being able to make any sense of Harry's thoughts, as it was for the sadness his friend was obviously feeling.

"It's okay," he said with a small, sad smile. "The Moon said, when you're lost, that just gives you the chance to be found all over again."

Bruce wasn't sure if Harry was talking about the mirror with the lost reflection or his own lost radish. Or...something else entirely.

* * *

...

* * *

Harry loved stories. He loved to listen to them, but he loved to tell his own, too.

Sometimes, they were about the scattered memories he had from before the dark.

Sometimes, he talked about the Bad Man. The Bad Man, who was really more of a snake and wasn't very human at all, controlled all the monsters in the night. The monsters brought nothing but pain and fear and death, and the Bad Man used to like to make Harry watch.

"And the Bad Man, he would take other people's bodies for him to use," Harry had whispered to Bruce in the dead of night, after one of his more difficult nightmares. "I think he did it to me once. Or maybe twice. Maybe more, I don't remember."

_It was the bad man's... He put some of him inside of me._ Bruce recalled Harry trying to explain exactly how it was that the Bad Man had broken him, and his mind went to all the worst sort of places. Of course, the fact that Harry wasn't even capable of confirming or denying his suspicions led to his assumptions growing even more horrible.

Harry didn't like talking about the Bad Man all that much.

Bruce was okay with that, because he didn't much like the green tint his eyes always had for a couple of hours after those stories.

Sometimes, Harry talked about the Lion and the Owl.

Sometimes, the Owl knew too much and sometimes not enough. She could see the pages, Harry explained, but not quite the world. For all the times the Lion wasn't there, however, she was the one who stayed by Harry's side. Because, sometimes, the Lion was angry and mean and did things that hurt, but not quite on purpose. Like a kitten who wanted to scratch, but didn't know he had such sharp claws. All the other times, though, the Lion was a friend. The Lion was big and strong, and he always protected Harry in the stories.

The Lion was a terrible driver, though. Harry still seemed to mourn the loss of the nice car who kept the spiders away.

Sometimes, he would tell Bruce about the Moon, about all the things that she saw that no one else ever could.

And, sometimes, on the clear nights, Harry would listen while Bruce told him about the stars. He told him about the constellations and all the legends behind them that he could remember. He told him how to use the stars to navigate, how travelers would use them to learn where home was and how to get back there. Bruce wasn't sure how much of it Harry actually retained, probably not much if the far-away look in his eyes was any indication, but he seemed to like simply laying next to Bruce and listening all the same.

"I know him," Harry said, pointing up to the brightest star of Canis Major.

"The Dog Star?" Bruce asked, watching as the clouds swirled under Orion.

Harry nodded. "He was supposed to take me home one day."

Bruce stopped himself before he corrected Harry, before he pointed out the Southern Cross and explained the North Star to him, before he told him how those were what everyone else used to guide them.

He didn't think Harry was talking about stars.

* * *

...

* * *

Soon enough, they had settled into their new life.

Bruce swore all he did was blink and over six months had already passed.

While he learned the languages and developed his medical skills, his mind devouring the science like a rabid badger, Harry delighted in the new landscape to explore. Somehow—Bruce _really_ wasn't sure how, but he suspected it had something to do with Harry's wide grin and even wider eyes—despite the language barrier, Harry managed to get some of local the villagers to show him how to grow crops. Harry quickly developed an obsession with growing anything green and edible, which Bruce would have called unhealthy, except...well, they were vegetables.

Needless to say, they ate broccoli at least a couple of times a week.

Really, though, Bruce should have suspected something before now.

He had never thought all that much about the necklace before. He had never thought about why it had survived his transformation or the other guy's reckless destruction. He had never wondered why he seemed calmer with it on, than without it, or even noticed the correlation. And the warmth that he felt in his chest whenever he absent mindedly touched the corks, he'd simply associated with the thought of his friend and his strange little gifts.

He hadn't really questioned the garden that seemed to practically spring up over night. He didn't really notice if Harry's plants perhaps grew a bit faster than was normal, or if the fruits and vegetables they produced where larger than most. If anything, he had thought that maybe that could be a hint into Harry's past. Maybe he was the child of gardeners? Maybe he'd grown up on a farm?

He _had_ wondered, of course, about Harry and his colors. Bruce would be lying if he said he wasn't fascinated by Harry's mind and, as much as he had learned to read his friend, the colors were a language he was still figuring out. He was curious, though, about what it was that Harry saw. A person's colors, according to Harry, were everything. The colors were all that they were, all that they wanted to be, and all that they should be—and Harry, with a single glance, could see all of that. The astonishing part was that most of the time, Harry, with his colors, was a very good judge of character.

So, all in all, Bruce really should have come to at least suspect something like this.

Bruce has been suffering from a bout of insomnia for the past few days and, desperate to get away from his warm, mocking bed, he had gone for a quick, peaceful walk.

What he'd come back to, however, wasn't peaceful. Not at all. Not when the furniture was trembling like it wanted to come to life and the walls were groaning like they were in pain. Not when Harry was deep in the throes of a nightmare, thrashing and moaning in despair. The nightmares were common, unfortunately, especially after the soldiers had attacked them. But when they did come, Bruce was always awake by the first whimper and waking Harry by the second. Bruce hadn't been there this time, though, and now Harry was suffering because of that.

Bruce barely took a second to take in the display of power around him, before rushing to his friend. "Harry, wake up," he said in a soothing voice and reached to try to shake him awake.

All that got him was one hell of a shock running up through his hand before he could touch Harry and, as the furniture grew more vigorous in its rattling, Bruce couldn't help the spike in his pulse. He grit his teeth against the adrenaline that was trying to race through him now and steadied his breathing. Bruce needed to do something quick, because this situation had all the potential to go fubar any minute now.

"Harry," Bruce got as close to him as he could without touching, and tried to speak in a calm and gentle voice. "Harry, I need you to wake up now. It's just a dream, okay? You're alright, Harry, I promise."

In response, the bedside table decided to try its hand at levitating. Which, Bruce thought, it did remarkably well, and he'd be able to better appreciate that skill if it weren't also flying towards his head.

"Harry!" Bruce shouted in a voice that was distinctly deeper and more guttural than was strictly human.

Finally, Harry's eyes snapped open and he woke up with a choked gasp, while, simultaneously, the window panes splintered and shattered. Bruce hunched over Harry, covering him with his body to try to protect him from the shower of glass, only to realize that the windows had exploded _outward_. The furniture settled itself back on the floor and everything went silent.

Harry blinked up at him, sleepy and confused. And, it seemed, entirely oblivious. "I had a bad dream?"

"...You could say that, yeah." Bruce stared at him, wide-eyed and a little breathless.

The silence outside was broken, when Bruce heard the excited murmuring that began to rise as people came out of their homes. Bruce got up and went over to their now windowless sill, looking out the opening to see that the neighbors were already crowding together, staring and pointing over to their home. They could probably cover this up. Most of the people that lived around here were from the medical camp as well, and knew that Bruce was a scientist and that Harry just plain old had a penchant for trouble. They could claim it was an experiment gone wrong or an accident.

But, people would still be too interested and Bruce wasn't going to take that risk.

"Harry, put your shoes on."

Harry rubbed his eyes tiredly and frowned at Bruce. "But, you're not green."

"New rules, buddy." He pulled the emergency bag out from under his bed, as well as the empty duffel next to it and began packing whatever they could carry. "And you, my apparently telekinetic friend, are going to be joining me in meditation from now on."


	5. Experiments and Subjects

AN: Okay, so, more questions to answer:

On Harry's age - There has been no change in timelines for either the books or the movies, nor does this fic have anything to do with him being the Master of Death (at least, not yet; the plot is still pretty vague in my head, so I haven't quite figured everything out). Harry was still born in 1980 and the Battle of Hogwarts still happened in 1998. So, why does Harry look young?

My own personal theory, really. (Well, that, and because Harry _acts_ so young, which changes people's perception of Harry's age.) Dumbledore lived to 115 and didn't even die of old age, he was still very active; and Bathilda Bagshot, who was a friend of Dumbledore's _mother_, was still alive and well until her murder after Dumbledore's death. Also, Rowling once said in an interview that she initially saw Dumbledore to be about 150, but later changed his age on her website. So, in my mind, I imagine magical people are be able to live up to about 150 or so.

Well, according to the Britannica Encyclopedia, the world's average lifespan is about 70 years (obviously, varying depending on genetics and life style). So, what do wizards and witches do with the extra 80 years? Live as really, _really_ old people? Since the books show them aging normally in their childhood, I kind of imagine them aging more slowly once they reach adulthood. Because, otherwise, over half of their life is spent being elderly, and that just doesn't make much sense to me.

On the Avengers - Yes, Harry will be meeting them. Keep in mind, this _is_ a crossover with 'Avengers,' not 'The Incredible Hulk.' But, as I said above, the timeline is still the same. 'The Incredible Hulk' happened in June 2008 and the story began not long after that (I'm thinking around September). The 'Avengers' didn't come about until April 2012.

That means I've got nearly _over three years_ of back story between Bruce and Harry to write first, before the Avengers even come into the picture. Be patient people! They'll probably start coming in, if not the next chapter, then the one after that.

Now, if I haven't answered a question you've asked in a review, that's because I refuse to give out spoilers. You're just gonna have to wait and find out the same way Bruce does.

PS: Rest in peace, Lonesome George! :(

* * *

Chapter 4 - In Which Bruce Experiments And Harry Is A Terrible Subject

* * *

Harry's head lolled to the side, landing on Bruce's shoulder, and he let out a quiet snore.

He had not appreciated being woken up before dawn. Again.

Bruce couldn't help it, though, because he still felt the anxiousness rising inside of him each time they stopped to rest for a night.

It was funny, Bruce thought to himself. After the fiasco in Harlem, after coming so close to a cure and then having to force himself into a change to stop the abomination that General Ross had created...Bruce's running had come to seem half-hearted at best. He lingered for too long, he ignored his instincts when they told him to run, he took unnecessary risks, like seeking out an English speaker and helping them out of a fight. If he was honest with himself—which Bruce did his best to be, because if there's one thing he's learned through all of this, it's that repression and control are two entirely different things—well then, he'd have to admit that he's entertained the thought of giving up plenty of times.

He was just...tired. Being a fugitive, constantly on the move and never sure when he was safe or who to trust, was nothing like the romanticized Hollywood image. It would be so easy, he would think to himself, to just _stop_. To stay in one place until they found him, to not run when they came, to let them pump him full of sedatives and strap him down with all the restraints they had.

Now, however, armed with the knowledge that it wasn't just his life on the line any longer, Bruce would be damned before he let anyone catch them.

If the people chasing Bruce ever found out what Harry could do... Well, actually, Bruce himself wasn't too sure what it was that Harry could do.

He glanced over at the slender body, fragile looking and completely incongruous with the power that Bruce now knew to be stored inside. Harry let out another snore, apparently having grown accustomed to sleeping through turbulent bus rides. Bruce wished he could do the same. The sun rising over the rolling dry plains outside the window and the early morning stillness within the bus may have presented a peaceful atmosphere, but there were half a dozen other passengers around them, and Bruce's paranoia had been getting the better of him these past few days.

Though the quiet, at least, allowed him to think.

Telekinesis had been Bruce's first assumption. Given the bedside table that had tried to brain him all on its own, that was an obvious suspicion. But, the more Bruce thought about it, the more clear it became that the evidence didn't match up. Telekinesis wouldn't explain why the plants that had been outside their little hut of a home had always ended up growing towards Harry's window instead of the sun, or why his garden had done so well. It didn't explain the necklace or the effect it had on Bruce. It didn't explain Harry's colors and how clearly he was able to see people with them.

Honestly, Bruce wasn't sure what was wrong with Harry, if anything. All he could do with the little evidence he held was postulate and form one hypothesis after another. Though the theories didn't make much sense without all the data, he was forever a scientist at heart and couldn't quite help himself.

The only way to test a hypothesis, however, was to experiment.

* * *

...

* * *

They'd stopped at Kimberley for the night, when Bruce first tried broaching the subject. The capital city, and the US Embassy within it, was getting a little to close for Bruce to really feel comfortable, but they were both exhausted from traveling halfway across the country and they needed the rest.

"Harry, I want you to try to bend this," Bruce said, holding up his soup spoon.

Harry blinked at him over the bowl he'd been slurping from. Carefully lowering it, he stared intently at the spoon and asked, "Why?"

Bruce shrugged. "Well, I figured we'd start with a classic."

"But then you won't have a spoon," Harry pointed out, his face scrunched in confusion and clearly not understanding Bruce's reference.

That was true, though. Utensils were a precious commodity while on the run. Bruce really didn't enjoy having to eat with his fingers. He put the spoon back in his bowl and, instead, drained the rest of his water and placed the empty cup on the table between them. "Alright, try knocking that over then."

Staring at Bruce warily, as if he expected Bruce to be playing a trick on him, Harry reached over and poked the cup.

"...Okay, that was good." Bruce smiled at Harry encouragingly. "But, I was hoping you could try to do it with...you know," he said, waving his hand vaguely, because he really wasn't sure what they were meant to call it.

Harry copied his gesture and wiggled his fingers at Bruce.

"No, Harry, I mean I want you to try to tip the cup without touching it," Bruce explained, standing the cup up once more and looking at his friend expectantly.

Brow furrowing in concentration, Harry leaned in close and contemplated the cup seriously. Bruce felt a shiver of anticipation run down his spine as he observed.

Then, Harry's cheeks puffed out and he blew the cup over with one strong breath.

Bruce stared down at the cup, torn between amusement and disappointment, before giving a little rueful chuckle and shaking his head. "That was very clever of you, Harry."

Harry grinned brightly at the compliment and went back to his soup, humming contently.

* * *

...

* * *

When they crossed the Botswana border and settled down for the night in a small hotel at Gaborone, Bruce tried a different tactic.

They sat on the floor, cross-legged, facing each other and eyes steadfastly fixed on one another. Or, at least, Bruce's eyes were.

"Focus, Harry," Bruce said in an even and firm tone, bringing his attention back from where it had wondered to the brown stain on the carpet.

Harry blinked, turning his green gaze back to Bruce, hypnotizing in its intensity when it actually stayed clear enough to _see_ him. Mimicking Bruce's breathing pattern like he had instructed Harry to moments ago, Harry really did do his best to try to concentrate. This lasted for all of a minute, before Harry began to waver, his eyes flickering back to the stain. When Harry's hand began to creep along the floor, inching towards the cigarette burn hole by the stain, Bruce grabbed both of Harry's hands in his and brought their fists between them. He gave a gentle squeeze to force Harry's attention back on Bruce.

After the third time Harry tried to pull away, Bruce threw his hands up in defeat. "Okay," Bruce drew the word out slowly, considering the problem. He snapped his fingers when an idea came to mind, and stood to walk over to their bags. "Okay, Harry, let's try giving you a focal point."

He dug out a lighter and one of the emergency candles from his duffel and brought it back to Harry, sitting down opposite him again and placing the candle on the floor between them. Mentally crossing his fingers, Bruce lit the wick and watched Harry's gaze sharpen as the flame flared to life.

"Now, Harry," he kept his voice low and soothing, "I want all of your attention on the flame. Watch it. See the way it flickers? Match your breath with its swaying, steady and easy, back and forth. Focus on it, Harry."

Bruce felt a thrill of victory when Harry didn't so much as blink, fixated as he was on the candle. Harry's gaze grew keen as he observed the fire and, mesmerized, his breathing grew deep and even. Bruce didn't dare move or make a sound, and risk disturbing the scene.

He was certain, _so certain_, in that moment that Bruce had found the way to teach Harry to calm his mind and control his erratic thoughts. That was, until Harry reached out to try and grab the flame.

"No!" Bruce lunged for the candle, toppling it over and spilling some of the melted wax on his hand, and starting a small fire on the carpet. He quickly patted out the sparks trying to grow in the carpet's threads, hissing as his palms grew hot and the hardening wax pulled at his skin. Well, one more scorch mark wasn't going to be noticeable on this floor, at least.

Once the disaster was averted, Bruce glanced back up at Harry, who was staring at him, eyes wide and alarmed, and hand still out-stretched. He gave Bruce a sheepish look and pulled his arm back.

"Let's not try that again," Bruce said with a small smile, assuring Harry that he wasn't angry. He stood with the extinguished candle and went over to the bathroom to run some cold water over his hands and pick the wax off.

When Bruce came back to the room, Harry was still seated on the floor, head tilted to the side, humming and fingers twitching as he contemplated the burned and stained carpet in front of him.

With a sigh, Bruce walked over and plopped himself down next to Harry, following his gaze to the ground below. "What are you seeing that I'm not, Harry?"

"I see red," Harry replied simply.

Bruce looked at the teal colored carpet and the brown stain. "Red?"

"Not like your red," Harry said comfortingly, as if that would be the reason Bruce couldn't see it. "You're bright. No, it's dark red. Crimson, like eyes. But she never saw it coming."

Feeling a chill in his bones, Bruce stared at the stain with far more trepidation than he had before. "I thought it was people who have colors, though?"

Harry nodded. "They do. But they leave them everywhere."

* * *

...

* * *

Bruce didn't come to relax until he had settled them in the middle of Mozambique.

Quelimane was a modest sized seaside town. Certainly not like the slums or little villages they'd grown accustomed to living in, but neither was it large or noticeable enough for Bruce to think they may end up at risk of being discovered. Bruce wasn't a fan of the humidity, but Harry seemed rather fond of the ocean breeze and the surrounding greenery. The fact that most of the people spoke Portuguese was a bonus for Bruce and helped with the final decision to stay, at least temporarily.

He watched as Harry walked on the fence surrounding the cliff's edge like it was a balance beam, arms out and one foot in front of the other. Despite Harry's almost preternatural equilibrium, Bruce could never stop the panic that jolted his heart every time Harry indulged his love of heights.

"Hey," Bruce called out and walked up to his friend, making sure there was plenty of noise in his approach to keep from startling Harry off the fence.

Harry turned on his heel and grinned down at Bruce. "I feel like flying," he said, in lieu of a greeting.

Bruce smiled back, but shook his head. "Please don't."

"Can't. No broom," was Harry's response, coupled with a patronizingly raised brow, as if Bruce really ought to know this already.

"Okay, wicked witch of the west," Bruce laughed, and leaned against the fence next to Harry. "As long as your feet stay on some sort of solid structure, I'll be happy. Alright?"

Harry looked like he wanted to scowl at Bruce, but was enjoying himself too much. His head thrown back and his arms spread like wings, with the wind coming off the water rustling all around him.

Bruce idly wondered if Harry's ever seen _The Titanic_.

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, dropping down to sit on the fence instead of walking along it. He reached down to pick up his satchel from the ground and rooted around in it for a moment, before triumphantly pulling out a long thin piece of sea glass to show Bruce. "Look at what I found. Do you think it'll fit the antler?"

Taking the treasure that Harry held out to him reverently, Bruce examined it and imagined the antler with the wide crack down its center resting on the desk back in their room, along with the rest of Harry's collection. "Yeah, you know, I think it will. We'll have to smooth out the edges some, but it'll fit."

Harry beamed at him, and Bruce felt the corks resting on his chest tingle and warm against his skin. Bruce reached a hand up to grip the necklace, a little breathless with awe at the sensation, and stared at Harry with avid interest. It was a common expression for Bruce, where Harry was concerned, but his young friend had turned back to the sea, basking in contentment at the thought of finding a piece for one of his broken things, and remained oblivious to Bruce's gaze or whatever unintentional effect he's had on him.

"You have no idea what sort of things you're capable of, do you?" Bruce murmured, half to himself.

Turning back to him, Harry only smiled again, the glazed and dreamy expression slowly creeping back in as the temporary excitement of his discovery ebbed.


	6. Interlude: Caterpillars and Trails

AN: So, I got a number of concerned readers warning me that someone might report me for having an AN for a chapter, and that might be grounds to have my story removed or something. I mean, really FF? WTF is with all these damn rules?

Anyway, for those who're new to the story or may not have read the AN that was here, a bunny rabbit broke my wrist.

Yes, you read that right. Though, to be fair, I'm sure it was entirely unintentional.

I can expect to keep the cast on until mid or late August and I'm probably going to have some physical therapy afterwards, but then I should be good as new. Until that time, however, you're gonna have to expect updates to be a little slow.

Now, enjoy the crazy I wrote up so I don't get reported.

PS: Please note that this was written while on painkillers.

* * *

Interlude - Where In There Are Caterpillars And Trails

* * *

The caterpillar has a hole in her.

You can see it.

Right there, in the very center, amidst all the simple spring greens and occasional sharp bursts of burnt orange, was a gaping nothing.

You tell her so, tell her she should really do something about that. You know what it feels like, to have that nothingness inside and to have all your colors feel no so bright because of it.

She thanks you. Says yes, she knows. Says, she was just about to fix it. And she starts spinning her silk underneath the leaf.

You have an image of how she is meant be, whole and cornflower and viridian and all the teals in between, with a gentle flow of sunflower yellow. You tell her she's beautiful.

Or, she will be. Or maybe, once was. You're really not too sure about that, it all gets a bit muddled by that point. But you're certain of what you see in your mind and she is gorgeous, fluttering her wings along the calm draft of a north wind.

You tell her she's beautiful and, bashful, she ducks her head away inside her cocoon, a small murmur of gratitude lingering behind on a wave of emerald.

And when she comes back out, you imagine, she'll be free of her nothingness.

...Maybe there's something to this cocoon thing?

* * *

...

* * *

Once upon a time, you didn't have a name.

You remember this.

You remember feeling blank, like a canvass with no colors. You remember a world of blacks and whites and shades of gray. You remember intermittent jumps of suspicious little sepias that tried to act like yellows and faking bouts of fuchsia that pretended to be greens.

These memories don't last long.

They're not important.

* * *

...

* * *

Bruce is right where you need to be.

You're sure of that.

Voices don't lie, not like words so often seem to. When the voices took you back out of the darkness, you were angry with them. It was still too bright outside the darkness, overwhelming and exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Waves of colors bombarding you from all around, battering against the shadows behind your eyes.

But the voices whispered soothing in your ear, like a brightly lit moon in a cloudless sky, like just the right balance of dark and light. The voices called, so you went. Muffled as they were, heavy like a black curtain, you heard them clear. Their words were meant for enticement, but their voices were sincere.

You were broken, they said. Your pieces were scattered to the wind and you wouldn't be finding them there, they said. Your place wasn't there, they said.

Come and you'll find a new place, they said.

So, you did.

Follow the colors, they said.

So, you did.

You found a trail of soothing vanilla that led you to an old couple, with skin dark and wrinkled and soft, like chocolate that melted in your mouth, and eyes bright and warm, like the spring sun clearing the winter chill away. You don't quite remember their names, but their names are not them, and you remember them easily enough, and that's the important part.

One gave you her brother's old clothes, which you never took off, even as they wore thin and got ripped in your traveling. Not until Bruce gave you new ones, because rags don't keep you warm, he said. The other gave you her satchel, and filled it with food when you said you had to leave, and the few possessions you had were stored safely inside it.

They were nice, and it was calm and quiet with them, but they weren't where you needed to be.

You left them looking a little cobalt blue, but they'd get their creamy colors back, you're sure.

You found a path of red, a strange shade you hadn't seen before, like a rose, but cold and dark in a way that made you think of swimming in the winter midnight. The man you found at the end of the trail matched his color well.

After that, you did your best to stay away from the reds.

Until, at least, you found a trace of it in a trail of sad blues, a poor little periwinkle that so desperately wanted to be azure. The red was bright, but subdued, with just a hint of fearful yellow and jittery orange, like embers trying to spark to life.

The red and the blues didn't blend together, though. They didn't make a purple. As inescapably drawn together as they were, they held themselves as far from the other as they could.

It made you ache for the one who owned the colors.

Follow me, they begged.

So, you did.

* * *

...

* * *

Once upon a time, you didn't exist.

You remember this.

You remember shades and versions of that which you were meant to be, but were never true. You remember being twisted this way and that, into what was expected, until you were something no longer recognizable. You remember giving all that was inside of you, until there was nothing more to be had, and crimson eyes consumed what little remained and the darkness came.

These memories, at times, linger in the night.

But, they're no longer important either.

* * *

...

* * *

The caterpillar has a hole in her.

You can see it.

Right there, in the very center of her, a gaping nothingness that she was born with. You tell her so, and she thanks you, and she spins her silk to fill it back up.

When she comes out, she'll be blues and greens, and all the endlessly possible shades and tints and tinges that can be found between them. She'll be free of the nothingness and everything else, except for the sway the wind holds over every creature in flight.

Maybe you could be a caterpillar? Maybe all you need to fill the nothingness is some tightly wound thread? Maybe you could grow wings, too? Maybe you could carry Bruce off with you, when you fly away?

When Bruce comes home to find you wrapped up in all the sheets you could find, he only stops to stare for a moment, before laughing and moving in to help bundle you up tighter.

He nods and makes encouraging noises in all the right places while you explain your caterpillar theory in a slightly muffled voice, because a few of the sheets were longer than you expected and came up to your nose. He's looking a little periwinkle again though, so you assure him that if you grow wings, you'll take him with you.

He smiles and warns you against over-heating.

You're not worried though. Bruce is a doctor.


	7. Troubles and Humdingers

AN: Wow, you guys are really being understanding...though, honestly, not much can be done about a broken bone, no matter how much you bitch. But still, thanks for the sympathy and all the tips.

Since you all are going to have to wait longer than usual for all the later chapters, I figured I'd take the opportunity to make this one longer.

PS: Is any one else _really_ freakin' annoyed with this new review system?

PPS: Yes, we're entering the Avengers' movie now. They're gonna be showing up next chapter, promise.

PPPS: Since Bruce is beginning to understand, I suppose I can give you guys a tip if you want to try to figure out the colors. Go to my profile and check out the links at the bottom. Those are the two things I'm mainly using as _reference_. Note the emphasis, because I'm kind of mixing things together and using my instinct to create my own little spectrum in my (and Harry's) head.

PPPPS (How many P's can you add before things get out of hand?): Note to self - request lower dosage painkillers...I'm starting to see colors. Coffee's a better painkiller anyway, right? I mean, who need's sleep? Not me. On hour number 51 right now, thank you very much. Also, how long do you reckon it takes for mold to grow in a coffee cup?

**WARNING: **For violence and sensitive subject matter in the last section of the chapter.

* * *

Chapter 5 - Where In There Are Troubles And Blibbering Humdingers That Buzz

* * *

"Evening, Pastor Dia," Bruce greeted, walking up the path to the cathedral.

"Good evening, Bruce," The elder priest replied, as he continued to sweep the front steps. He used the handle of the broom to point in the direction of the courtyard with an amused smile. "He's up in his tree, again."

Bruce nodded with a fond smile of his own. "Of course he is."

Continuing down the pathway, past the aged church, he crossed the courtyard and made his way to the large, old miombo tree. Its branches reached higher even than the church's top spire, and it was no wonder why it had quickly become Harry's favored hideaway. When Bruce reached the trunk and looked up, he saw that Harry was, of course, lounging on the topmost bough. There was no way Bruce was meeting him up there.

"Excuse me," Bruce called. "But are you a monkey or are you a man? I get confused sometimes."

Harry's head perked up, leaning perilously over the edge of the branch to peer down at him. "Bruce!" True to his recently acquired nickname, Harry flung himself from one branch to another and quickly scaled down the tree like he'd been born in it. Climbing down to the lowest hanging bough next to Bruce, Harry hooked his knees over it and swung down so that his smiling, inverted face was hanging in front of Bruce.

"Well, hello there Simian," Bruce teased. "You look familiar. Have I seen you in this tree before?"

He gave Bruce a look that clearly told him his jokes weren't as funny as he thought they were. "Bruce, I'm not a monkey," Harry said seriously, as if Bruce was honestly questioning his species.

Bruce carefully contemplated his friend's upside-down figure, before asking, "Bat?"

"I don't have wings," Harry informed him, almost mournfully.

"Well, personally, I'm thankful for that. If nature ever saw fit to give you wings, then your feet would never touch the ground and I wouldn't see you again."

Harry only hummed in response, a dreamy smile on his face as he probably tried to imagine what it would be like to fly, and likely not hearing a word Bruce just said.

Giving him a quick poke in the side to get his attention, Bruce nodded his head back towards the church. "Come on, it's time to head home. Let's go say good-bye to the Pastor."

"He's been looking awfully turquoise today," Harry commented, dropping down from the tree.

Bright blues and greens, Bruce mentally translated. Happy and peaceful. "His daughter is coming down from the Congo tomorrow. It's the first time she's been able to visit in the past year," he explained. Pastor Dia had told them both this just the other day, but Harry's attention had been distracted by a passing ibis, so Bruce really didn't expect him to have remembered.

They bid their farewells to the priest and continued on down the road to their home. This had become their routine for the past ten months or so, quickly establishing itself early on and turning into a comfort for the two previously wayward travelers.

Bruce had snagged a job down at the docks easily enough, helping with the loading and unloading of the boats and maintaining the machinery. The work meant long hours, though, and that also meant leaving Harry alone for the majority of the day. Even though Bruce knew that Harry could take care of himself, for the most part at least, a bored Harry never amounted to anything good.

This Bruce had learned the hard way back in South America, when Harry had decided to try his hand at collecting poison dart frogs. They had very nice colors, Harry had explained. There had also been that time in Port Nolloth when Harry had developed an unfortunate kinship with an ostrich, bemoaning his own flightlessness to the empathetic bird. Bruce had lived in constant fear of disembowelment, after first trying to shoo the overgrown mother hen away.

Thankfully, soon after settling into the town, Harry had discovered and fallen in love with the cathedral gardens during one of his explorations of the area.

Pastor Dia had welcomed the help and was good with Harry. He didn't treat the young man like a child, didn't give him a pat on the head and a smile and send him on his way like most of the town's people tended to do. And, though he also knew better than to expect any interaction with Harry to be 'normal' or to even make much sense, he never treated Harry differently because of it. The fact that he was one of the few that also spoke English was another bonus, since Harry still didn't seem to be able to retain much of the Portuguese Bruce and the priest both tried to teach him. Though Bruce would swear he's heard him muttering Latin, of all things, in his sleep sometimes.

"...and we planted daisies in the front plots today. You saw them, right, the blue ones? Oh, and I taught the gazanias to wave, too, but I didn't let Pastor Dia see, just like you said. And there were blibbering humdingers buzzing about the aloes, but I sent them away. The aloes were very appreciative and turned bright yellow for me," Harry babbled while they followed the path home, their hands brushing as they walked side by side.

Bruce relaxed into the comfortable warmth settling in his chest. He had a feeling their time was running out here, so he'd damn well enjoy every moment of it while he could.

* * *

...

* * *

"Can we do it again tonight?" Harry looked up at him hopefully and finished his last piece of broccoli.

Bruce paused in gathering the plates to stare at Harry. "Are you sure? Last time kind of...well, freaked you out."

Harry bit at his lip nervously, hopefully giving the question serious consideration, before nodding with a firm and decisive expression. "Again."

He stared at Harry for a moment longer, then nodded back. "Okay, go run the bath."

As Harry rushed out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, Bruce stacked the dishes in the sink and reached underneath into the cupboards, pulling out the canister of Epsom salt. It was an idea that came to Bruce after a few months of a continuous stream of failed meditation exercises. Nothing seemed to be able to keep Harry's focus for more than a moment or two, and Bruce was nearly ready to give up on the notion of trying to tame Harry's mind.

One day, he'd been telling Harry about his life at the college, about Culver University and about Betty, when a thought popped into his head. He remembered a group of juniors from the psychology department, who had commandeered the gymnasium one spring and set up a couple of isolation tanks for students and staff to try. Betty had convinced him to try it, claiming it would help him learn to relax, and really, she'd been right. Bruce remembered what it had felt like, floating in the dense salt water with nothing but stillness around him, nothing but the thrumming of his own heart in his ears.

It was pretty much the only thing that worked for Harry and, after the taking the first couple of weeks to teach Harry how to calm his mind, he was levitating the shampoo bottles by the third month. It had been a wonder to witness and Bruce's scientific mind ran rampant with speculation as the laws of the physical world were shattered before his very eyes. As amazing as Harry's..._powers_, for lack of a better word, were, Bruce was honestly more interested in his mind.

Once Harry had gained at least a modicum of control over himself, Bruce started trying something else. Floating gently on top of the water in the dark and quiet room, it worked like self-hypnosis for Harry, and they had begun using it to try to find Harry's memories.

While Harry stripped, apparently unplagued by the sort of bashfulness that had burdened Bruce through out his life, Bruce poured the salt into the warm water and prepared the bath. After Harry had climbed in and relaxed in the water, eyes closed, he turned off the lights and lit a small candle for him to see by. Doing his best not to make a sound, he sat down next to the tub and waited.

After a few moments Harry's breathing evened out, as if he was sleeping, and Bruce waited a small while longer, to ensure he was completely relaxed, before speaking. "Harry?"

Harry hummed in a vague acknowledgement, but didn't make a sound otherwise.

"You ready?" Again, a hum, and Bruce took it to be in agreement. "Okay, let's start with the darkness, Harry. Let's go back there."

"It's dark."

"...Yes, I know it's dark." Bruce resisted the urge to roll his eyes, even though he knew Harry couldn't see. "But that's alright, Harry."

"I lost my special eyes," Harry explained in an aggrieved tone.

"Harry, your eyes aren't all of you," he said comfortingly. "Even if you can't see, you can still hear, can't you? You can still smell and touch and taste, right?"

Harry didn't respond, laying still and silent in the water for a moment, before, "I hear the Moon."

Bruce nodded, expecting that. She seemed to be one of the most prominent figures in Harry's memories. "What is she saying?"

"She's singing," Harry said, before humming a familiar tune.

"She's singing your lullaby?" He asked encouragingly, trying to keep Harry going.

"My lullaby," Harry whispered reverently, a small smile tugging at his lips. His left hand twitched a bit on top of the water, as if in muscle memory. "She's holding my hand and whispering secrets in my ear."

"What about the Lion or the Owl," the other common fixtures of Harry's mind. "Do you hear them in the dark, Harry?"

Harry paused, the smile turning downwards into a slight frown and his brow wrinkling. "Sometimes. They don't like the darkness, it makes them sad."

Sensing a dead end down this line of questioning, Bruce decided to take another direction. "Okay, let's try going farther back. Harry, can you remember before the darkness came?"

It was silent for a moment longer, before Harry huffed out a breath, his face contorting in displeasure. Harry's right arm twitched, and his breath hitched in his chest as he squirmed. The hushed stillness of the bathroom broke as the water splashed, waves being caused as Harry grew restless and agitated.

"Harry, it's alright," Bruce whispered a little desperately. This had taken too quick of a downturn for him to be prepared. "You don't have to remem—"

"It's...bright. It's everything, it's too much. It's colors, all the colors in the world and everything that isn't here. Like dying without death," Harry half-sobbed and, even as his body grew unnaturally still, the water continued to churn.

"Okay," Bruce soothed. "It's okay, Harry, I'm right here. You're here with me, you're not there."

"No no no no no, it's not okay, it's not. The stone's too heavy, too much weight for a soul to bear, but no where to drop it if the soul's not even there."

From the crack under the bathroom door, Bruce could see the lights in the livingroom flickering on and off. "Uh, Harry..."

"And it burns like ice, too deep inside for anyone to reach. All the colors, like a river with no dam, humdingers buzzing in the air—"

"Okay. Okay, um... _Over the mountains, over the sea, back where my heart is longing to be_," Bruce sang, his voice cracking nervously, because this felt too much like that first nightmare. "_Please let the light that shines on me_—"

It was like an electrical storm. Bruce could feel the energy crackling around him and smell the ozone in the air. The acrylic side of the tub splintered and for just a moment, everything stilled. Calm before the storm, Bruce's mind supplied, before the side broke and the water exploded outwards, soaking Bruce, and the mirror behind him shattered in a shower of glass.

Bruce spat out the salty water with a grimace and the world around them fell silent. He sat there, in the large puddle of water and shards, and stared at Harry, who looked not unlike a drowned pup. Harry stared back.

"Feel better?" He asked, with an unamused expression.

Harry looked up and off to the side, clearly contemplating the question. Apparently back to normal, and none the worse for wear, Harry looked back at Bruce and nodded.

"Right." From under the doorway, Bruce could see all the lights in the livingroom, and probably the rest of their home, were out. "Well, I think we might have accidentally hit upon a touchy subject for you."

Harry blinked.

Bruce sighed as he stood, careful to avoid any of the glass. "Just stay there. I don't want you to cut your feet on this mess." He glanced over at the window, also broken, and stilled when he saw the rest of the town outside. Same as their own home, none of the other buildings seemed to have electricity either. A total blackout, with no reasonable cause, and their bathroom destroyed. Bruce cursed.

"Are we going east again?" Harry asked with a guilty expression.

He smiled at Harry comfortingly. "Yeah, buddy, looks like we're going to have to move again. We can't really go east though. Nothing east of us but the ocean. Well, there's Madagascar, but I really don't think we'd be able to sneak onto that island under the radar."

Harry scowled up at Bruce. "But, we have to go east."

"We can still go east," Bruce said placatingly. "We just need to go a little north first."

Unhappy, but accepting that geography changed for no man, Harry sighed and nodded. "Do I have to wear shoes?"

* * *

...

* * *

Somalia had been a bad idea from the start.

To be fair, he really hadn't intended to settle them in the country. They'd only been cutting through, traveling along the border and headed for Ethiopia, when they stumbled across the medical camp. The people there had been in desperate need of assistance and, although Harry had been more than a little reluctant, they stayed to help. Just for a little while, Bruce had assured him.

They hadn't been there for even a month, when the camp was attacked. Rebel forces, terrorists, freedom fighters—whatever the hell they were being called now days, all Bruce knew was that there'd been guns and screaming, and even in the best of situations, that's a horrible combination, but doubly so when he's involved.

Staring up at the man who'd put the barrel of his rifle in Bruce's mouth with a cruel smirk, the rapidly rising beat of his heart and Harry's shouts had been the last things he heard before the trigger was pulled.

When Bruce woke up, he was admittedly startled. One, because he was _waking up_. Apparently, the other guy also helped him survive bullet wounds to the head. And, really, if a bullet in the brain wouldn't kill them, what the hell could? That concern was temporarily pushed to the side, though, because of the other startling fact. There was no humming. There was no humming, no singing, no shuffling or complaining at all. Since they had met, every time Bruce had one of his 'episodes,' Harry was always next to him when he awoke.

"Harry?" He rasped, trying to sit up and fighting down the rising panic. Clearing his throat, Bruce tried again. "Harry!"

The crunching of leaves and twigs under feet alerted Bruce to another's presence, and he turned to see Harry making his way through the dry forest to Bruce. "I brought pants," Harry smiled at him and held up his satchel triumphantly. "And shoes."

Ignoring the sticks poking into his backside, Bruce sagged back onto the ground in relief.

He heard Harry come closer and green eyes entered his field of vision. "You require an awful lot of taking care of, you know?"

Said the pot to the kettle, Bruce thought. "My apologies," he deadpanned.

Harry simply laughed at him, as if he knew exactly what Bruce was thinking. Which, considering who Bruce was speaking to, might actually be the case.

As the worry for his friend faded, another entered his mind. "Harry, the camp. The men, the bad men, did they...?"

Harry shook his head and handed Bruce the clothes he'd scavenged from somewhere. "You scared away all the heliopaths when you turned green. I think everyone's pretty much fine."

Bruce let out a relieved sigh as he dressed. He wanted to go back, wanted badly to help and make sure all the people from the camp hadn't been harmed. But it was too much of a risk, and, honestly, he doubted he'd be welcomed this time. "I think maybe it's time we got out of Africa, Harry."

Pouting, Harry shook his head. "But, I like the big cats here."

That gave Bruce pause. God, he really hoped Harry hadn't been off visiting lions when Bruce wasn't looking. Mentally reviewing what he knew about the near-by countries, he gave Harry a little smile. "Well, how do you like tigers? India's not too far away."

Judging by the wide grin that was taking over his face, Harry seemed quite happy with that plan.


	8. Nargles and Bumblebee

AN: **If you haven't seen it already, GO BACK TO PART 6!**

I wrote a little interlude in Harry's POV to replace the AN. Also, keep in mind that I wrote it _before_ I traded in my painkillers for a lower dose. So, yeah...I was a little out of my gourd. I think it's kind of noticeable.

And, many thanks to **SiOmniaFicta**'s 'Marvel's The Avengers Script'. Chapter 5 kinda saved my butt while writing this, because for the life of me, I could not find a translation for the Kolkata scene anywhere on the internet.

PS: To **random on a whim** - Ding ding ding! Congratulations! You have figured out the special eyes! Well, actually, it's a bit more complicated than that, but still. You're the first to have spotted the fact that Harry hasn't had his glasses for the past 16000 words or so. :)

PPS: My mom got me a couple of bags of New England Blueberry coffee as a _Get Well_ gift. I'm in an insomniac's heaven.

PPPS: This chapter killed me.

PPPPS: I'm gonna gnaw this goddamn cast off, I swear!

**WARNING:** For PTSD-esque thoughts and memories of violence.

* * *

Chapter 6 - Where In Nargles Return And Bumblebee Attacks

* * *

"Shh!" Harry quickly shushed him when a twig snapped underfoot.

Holding up his hands in a placating manner, Bruce mouthed a silent apology.

Pressing himself against the large tree to peer around it and into the clearing, brightly lit from the full moon's light, Harry kept his unfocused gaze locked firmly on the blue-hued ground. Following his young friend's example, Bruce peeked around Harry to stare into the still empty circle of trees.

Harry leaned against the tree, sighing in disappointment. "They're not here, either."

Bruce put a comforting hand on Harry's head and ruffled his hair. "Maybe mooncalves live somewhere else?"

"No," Harry shook his head. "If they'd be anywhere, mooncalves would be here. They would be loved here."

"Well, then, maybe they just went to bed early?"

Harry only sighed again and stared longingly into the clearing, picking absent mindedly at the tree's bark with his nail. "No holly or ash or vine. No feathers or hairs or heartstrings," he mumbled dejectedly.

Bruce paid no mind to the fairly nonsensical words. In fact, he carefully ignored that last bit, because he did not want to know where heartstrings came into play. He tugged on his radish earring teasingly, drawing out a reluctant smile from him. "You think maybe we should go do the same?"

As if on cue, Harry gave a jaw-cracking yawn.

Chuckling, Bruce wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders and drew him away from the trees. "Come on, buddy, let's head back."

Harry nodded tiredly and allowed himself to be led through the forest and back onto the main path.

Bruce was feeling drowsy himself, and they had only recently begun to sleep fully through the night, so he definitely wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Surprisingly, Harry had recovered from the Somalia incident pretty quickly. Not unlike the resilient way children were able to spring back from traumas, Bruce had thought to himself, despite being certain that Harry had to be at least in his mid-twenties by now. Bruce had his suspicions that Harry may be even older than that, but considering the fact that even Harry didn't seem to remember his own birthday, he had a feeling that the mystery was going to remain unsolved for the time being.

Now, Bruce himself... Well, his recovery had been a good deal slower.

It was the burning taste of metal from a recently fired gun, that had him in a cold sweat and panting for breath. It was the sound of the villagers' screams in the medical camp, as they were being rounded up for purposes that Bruce didn't want to imagine, that had him jerking awake in the middle of the night. It was the spastic footage that ran behind his closed lids, the sporadic memories seen from the other guy's eyes, that left him with a lingering fear of what he might have done. It was Harry calling out for him and the sound of a bullet being chambered, before darkness enveloped him, that left Bruce with a gripping sense of dread in the pit of his stomach as he pondered his own mortality. Or, rather, his lack of it.

Most people probably wouldn't find it so terrible, the thought that they couldn't be killed. But, then, most people didn't consider themselves a weapon of mass destruction. Most people didn't wake up to find that they've left a city covered in rubble because they lost their temper.

In a strange sort of role reversal, it was Harry taking care of Bruce during those weeks traveling through Ethiopia. Most nights he would wake, just before the worst of the nightmares started, to the feel of Harry slipping under the sheets next to him, claiming nightmares of his own. Bruce wasn't fooled, but he also wasn't prideful enough to turn away the comfort.

Harry always refused to sleep again until Bruce did as well, and most nights that didn't happen.

Their steadily rising exhaustion had them traveling slowly, but soon enough they'd made their way to Djibouti and were bartering passage across the Arabian Sea.

After reaching the harbors of Mumbai, true to his word, Bruce had them heading east again.

Now, he just had to hope Harry didn't remember his promise about the tigers.

* * *

...

* * *

Of course, Harry remembered.

He was all but bouncing in his seat as their jeep rode along the forest's pathway. Though, that may have just been due to the very bumpy road, because Bruce was bouncing quite a bit, too. The guide was going on about all the unique wildlife found in the Kahna National Park and the role the park played in the conservation of India's flora and fauna. Bruce was sure it was all very interesting information, but his attentions were more focused on keeping Harry _inside_ of the jeep and staying aware of their surroundings.

In all of the now three continents and dozen countries they had traveled through, they had never really done the tourist thing. Granted, the towns and villages they usually ended up at didn't quite have anything that was worthy of touring and they didn't have much extra money to treat themselves. But, after the last month or so, Bruce decided they were due for some relaxation and he owed Harry tigers.

Now, if only his paranoia would take a break, too.

There were a few locals and a group of Londoners sharing their convoy. University students, Bruce was sure the latter were. He knew college kids when he saw them. After hearing Harry's accent, they'd tried to lure their fellow European into conversation with talk about the latest movies and music and celebrities from the good old UK.

Harry, having spent the past year and a half or so in the wilds of Africa, knew about none of these things and really didn't seem to care to know. Aside from a cursory glance and a comment on their unfortunate shades of pink, Harry paid them no mind.

The Londoners, however, were now paying them quite a lot of mind, and Bruce was remembering _why,_ exactly, they always avoided tourist areas.

Every hushed conversation and significant glance in their direction left Bruce feeling anxious and twitchy, as if the others were just a second away from calling the US army.

And the large, feline predator slowly stalking towards their jeep wasn't helping his nerves.

Harry let out an honest to god _squeal_ of delight and tried to leap out of the jeep towards the big kitty.

He probably would have made it, too, if Bruce's reflexes didn't have him wrapping an arm around Harry's waist before his butt left the seat. The guide had turned in his seat to give them a startled look, as did the rest of the passengers. Even the tiger looked like she was having second thoughts about coming over to sniff at the vehicle.

Bruce chuckled nervously and gave them all what he hoped to be a charming grin. "Sorry, he's just really excited. He loves animals," he explained with a sheepish shrug.

Harry started cooing at the tiger, trying to encourage her to come closer, since Bruce obviously wasn't going to be letting go of him any time soon.

The guide wisely decided that would be a good time to start driving again and move on with the tour. Harry leaned over the side to keep the tiger in sight for as long as possible, and Bruce grabbed the back of his shirt tightly. Giving the feline a mournful little wave, Harry settled back into his seat with a scowl, which was being aimed firmly at the back of the guide's head.

"Hey, Simian," Bruce gave Harry a little poke to refocus his attentions away from trying to maim the guide with his glare. "You remember our deal, right?"

Harry nodded solemnly. "We only do this if I promise not to go looking for animals on my own anymore." His eyes were straying again, taking in every inch of the forest as they slowly drove through it, and widening in excitement when he saw a pair of jackals run across the path. "Thank you, Bruce."

Feeling rather pleased with himself, Bruce grinned and gave a little shrug. "Well, you know. I figured we could have some fun and try to relax little."

"You are not relaxed," Harry laughed.

"Yeah, well, I'm surrounded by things that wouldn't mind eating me. Not to mention," he added with a glower, "that you seem to have the constant urge to hug things with very deadly appendages."

"I hug you," Harry replied nonchalantly.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "I don't have deadly appendages."

"I hug you when you're green."

"...You hug me when I'm green?" Bruce blinked, nonplussed. It had become apparent after his first couple of accidents that, for whatever reason, Harry seemed to be safe with the other guy. But, hugging? Really? God, he hoped nobody ever gets a picture of that.

"You like hugs more when you're green," Harry nodded. At Bruce's still confused expression, Harry gave an exasperated sigh. "You know, scary things might not seem so scary if you tried to understand them."

Scientist though Bruce may be, Harry had the uncanny ability to make him feel like he was being particularly dense sometimes. "Harry, I don't think I speak the same language as the other things."

Harry just smiled, gaze flittering upwards and locking with the leopard lazing in a tree above them. "I never said anything about speaking."

* * *

...

* * *

Bruce was just cleaning up after dealing with his latest patients, when he heard the commotion coming from the stairway.

Using the smudged mirror to look behind him at the entryway, Bruce saw a little girl peeking through the railings, staring up at the mother of the family imploringly. He caught the word 'doctor' amidst the child's babbling, and made his way over to them. When she saw him, her chattering increased in pace, and Bruce held up his hand in a calming manner. There was no way his Hindi was good enough to understand all that.

"Slow down," he said soothingly, kneeling down next to her.

Taking a steadying breath, the little girl stared up at him with wide, scared eyes. "My father..." She murmured in Hindi.

"Like them?" He asked, pointing over to the two children who, unfortunately, were just a few of the many people who'd fallen ill in the slums of Calcutta. Harry sat on the floor by the bed, fingers running through the younger boy's hair comfortingly, watching the exchange with a curious expression.

"Please," she whispered in English, holding out a fist full of money.

Bruce wasn't going to hesitate. She was just a little girl, asking for help in healing her family and offering money for his services, too. Honestly, he would have gone with her to help either way, but funds were running low and a bit of extra money was always welcomed. So, he wasn't going to hesitate. Until he looked over to Harry, that is.

While his hand continued its soothing motions through the boy's hair, Harry's gaze was locked firmly on the little girl on the stairs. "Nargles on her tongue," Harry cautioned.

Lying. Bruce didn't see it. Well, maybe his instincts were telling him that she seemed kind of off, but if her father was ill, of course she'd be nervous and anxious. Harry's judgment had never been wrong before, not in all the years they'd been traveling together. But if it was, just this once, and a little girl lost her father because Bruce didn't help...

Coming to a decision, Bruce grabbed his bag and walked over to Harry, picking up the last of his materials as he did. "Go back to the apartment," he whispered to keep the girl from hearing. "Keep an eye out, stay safe and make sure no one's following. When you get home, lock everything down and wait for me. Okay?"

Nodding in understanding, Harry gave the now sleeping boy one last pat on the head and a smile to the other laying next to him, before calmly walking down the stairs, not sparing a glance at the girl.

Once Harry was out of sight, Bruce gave the child an easy smile and motioned for her to lead the way. She didn't need any more incentive than that, and she took off at a run that was much quicker than Bruce expected on those little legs. Her petite body weaved through the crowds easily, and Bruce struggled to keep up with her as they headed for the outskirts of the city.

The farther away from the crowds they got, however, the more he didn't like this.

The girl didn't slow down until they reached a shack at the very edge of the slums. Bruce pulled her back away from the road as a jeep drove by, careful to angle his back towards it and keep his face hidden. She ran ahead into the home, but Bruce paused for a moment, watching as the car continued on without incident and scanning the area around him.

Something wasn't right.

He followed the little girl into the shack, just in time to see her run into the back room and climb out the window.

Should've listened to Harry, Bruce thought with a snort. "Should've got paid up front, too."

"You know," Bruce startled and turned around to see a young woman coming out from behind the curtains on the other side of the room. "For a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle."

"Avoiding stress isn't the secret," he replied, carefully setting down his bag. If there was going to be a fight, he wanted his tools out of the way.

The woman quirked her brow with a little smirk, as she observed his actions. "Then what is it? Yoga?"

He gave her a grin that showed all his teeth and walked away from his bag, looking around the house for his exits or any companions she may have brought with her. "You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart. I, uh, assume the whole place is surrounded?" He glanced out the window, scanning the tree line. He probably wouldn't make it before whoever was waiting out there got to him first.

"Just you and me," she assured him, and Bruce very nearly believed her. She was good.

"And, your actress buddy? Is she a spy, too? They start that young?"

The woman gave a little shrug. "I did," she said simply.

Bruce hummed. Soothing, sweet voice, beautiful young woman, sprinkle a little sympathy on top. They knew what they were doing. "Who are you?"

"Natasha Romanoff."

Giving a little nod, Bruce reached up to grip one of the corks on his necklace, feeling the waves of _calmcalmcalm_ coming from it, and glanced off to the side, considering his options. She gave him a strange look when she noticed his choice in jewelry, but he ignored it. "Are you here to kill me, Ms. Romanoff? 'Cause, that's not gonna work out for everyone."

Her brow furrowed and she looked almost honestly concerned at the suggestion. "No. No, of course not. I'm here on behalf of SHIELD."

"SHIELD." Of course. "How'd they find me?"

"We never lost you, Doctor. We've kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent," she said with a pleased look, as if it proved they were on his side.

Bruce scowled. "Why?"

"Nick Fury seems to trust you. But, now we need you to come in."

He stood up straighter, squaring his shoulders and holding his head a little higher. "What if I say no?"

She seemed amused by his question. "I'll persuade you."

Bruce nodded. That's what he expected. If he was alone, he probably wouldn't bother. It wouldn't be an option. But, he had Harry to look after—who was right now, hopefully, locked up in their little one room apartment, waiting for Bruce to come home. "...And, what if the _other guy_ says no?"

"You've been more than a year without an incident. I don't think you want to break that streak," she dismissed his unsubtle threat confidently, walking away from him to her bag.

He scoffed quietly. "Well, I don't every time get what I want."

Romanoff turned back to him, a phone in hand and an impatient tone in her voice. "Doctor, we're facing a potential global catastrophe."

Bruce chuckled. "Oh, those I actively try to avoid."

"This," she sat down at the table between them and slid her phone over with a picture of a glowing blue cube on the screen, "is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet."

Pulling out his glasses, he decided to play along, squinting at the strange device depicted on the phone. "What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?"

"He wants you to find it," she said with aplomb, because if that's what Fury wanted, then that's what he'd get. "It's been taken. It emits a gamma signature that's too weak for us to trace. No one knows gamma radiation like you do. If there was, that's where I'd be."

"So, Fury isn't after the monster?" He asked doubtfully.

"Not that he's told me."

Bruce gave her a sardonic little smirk. "And he tells you everything?"

"Talk to Fury. He needs you on this."

Bruce wasn't playing ball with her, wasn't falling for her routine and it was making her nervous. "He needs me in a cage."

"No one's going to put you in a—"

"Stop lying to me!" Slamming his fist down on the table, he leaned in close to her with a snarl. Her reaction was instantaneous and exactly what he was expecting. She pulled out a gun that had been stashed under the table and leveled it with his head. He took a step back, hands held up in surrender and gave her a sheepish little grin, feeling a bit guilty for scaring her. "I'm sorry, that was mean. I just wanted to see what you'd do. Why don't we do this the easy way, where you don't use that and the other guy doesn't make a mess? Okay? Natasha?"

She was silent for a moment, staring him down, likely waiting for him to show any signs of changing. After apparently being satisfied that he wouldn't be growing green at the moment, she reached a hand up to the ear piece that had been hidden by her hair. "Stand down. We're good here."

There was only a slight rustling heard outside as her team retreated, and Bruce raised a brow at her. "Just you and me?"

Romanoff scowled, obviously not appreciating getting caught, but gave an unrepentant shrug, gun still in hand. "Precautions. I'm sure you can understand, given the situation."

"I understand just fine. Just wish you people would _stop lying_ about it," he drew the sentence out slowly, giving her a meaningful look. She twitched when he reached for the phone again, but Bruce paid her no mind. "The whole planet, huh?" He asked, staring at the glowing, alien object.

"Without a doubt," she confirmed.

Harry wasn't going to like this, he thought to himself, before nodding. "We're going to need to pick someone up first, before we leave."

Romanoff hesitated, setting off alarm bells in the back of Bruce's mind. "Dr. Banner, we are, of course, aware of your companion. We know you haven't gone anywhere without him in over three years, but, in this instance, I'm going to have to insist that he be left behind. We can't involve anymore civilians in this mess than we already are."

Bruce stared at her for a moment, making her glare back at him defiantly, then gave a dark little chuckle and set the phone back down on the table. "Really? Well, I'm going to have to insist otherwise."

"Doctor—"

"You need me, Agent Romanoff." Bruce straightened his spine and set his jaw. "Not the other way around. So, sorry if I'm putting you in a difficult position, but I come as a package deal."

Her glare deepened, but Bruce stared back at her with an even and level gaze, daring her to call him on his threat. With a slight wince, as if it physically pained her to concede the stand off, she reached for her ear piece again. "Team two, retrieve," she commanded.

Bruce's eyes narrowed. He did not like the sound of that. "Team two? Where's team two? Retrieve what?"

"We had another team tailing your friend," she explained without the slightest hint of guilt.

"Uh, no. No, bad idea, call them off," Bruce demanded.

"They'll explain the situation to him and meet us at the jet, Dr. Banner. It'll save us time we can't afford to waste," she reasoned.

"No, you don't understand. Harry _really_ doesn't like," nargles, "...uh, strangers."

Romanoff quirked a delicately shaped eyebrow and scoffed. "They're highly trained operatives, Dr. Banner. I'm sure they can bring him in without there being any troub—" She cut herself off, head cocking to the side and brow furrowing as she listened to something, before she reached for her ear piece and hissed, "What do you mean 'a problem?'"

Bruce fought the urge to roll his eyes.

* * *

...

* * *

"Am I really seeing this?" Romanoff asked blankly.

Bruce shrugged. "I did warn you."

"No," she said slowly. "No, you didn't say anything about this. I'm certain I would have remembered if you did."

"Well," Bruce winced when something that probably wasn't mud was launched at the car's windshield. "Animals tend to like him a lot, so..."

"So, they wage war in his defense?"

"These ones do," he said simply, opening the back door of the car and crawling out, careful to keep the vehicle between him and the building.

Romanoff followed his example, ducking to take cover behind the car when a pebble whizzed by her head. They made their way over to the half dozen men and women who were also hiding behind their vehicles, effectively cowed by the large troop of macaques that had taken sentry positions on and around his apartment building. Two of them had a welt forming on their foreheads and one of them had something foul smelling on the back of her flak jacket.

"What the hell is going on?" Romanoff hissed at them

They all glanced at the others, each of them seeming equally flabbergasted at the turn of events during what should have been a simple retrieval operation, before the senior officer cleared his throat. "Well, ma'am, our orders were to be inconspicuous. Given the situation..."

"Yeah, I think you're pretty damn conspicuous right now," Romanoff growled, motioning to the people milling about on the street and staring out their windows to watch the scene.

"I think it would probably be more conspicuous if your people went around shooting sacred animals," Bruce pointed out.

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Can you do anything about this?"

Bruce was tempted to ask for a 'please,' just out of spite, but he relented and peeked around the jeep to scan the line of monkeys. He caught sight of the leader quickly, easily recognizable from the long white mane that framed his face. He gave a loud, sharp whistle that startled the primates into a cease fire long enough for Bruce to stand up without the risk of being pelted with rotten fruit. "Bumblebee!" Bruce shouted to the leader. "That's enough!"

Bumblebee's response was an angry screech, baring his teeth at Bruce.

"Hey!" Bruce pointed a warning finger at the macaque and glared. "I mean it. Harry's not in any danger, so stop it."

He knew the agents behind him were probably thinking uncharitable thoughts about his sanity right now, given that he was yelling at a monkey. But, Bumblebee stopped yowling and seemed to be contemplating the situation and whether or not they could retreat. After a moment, Bumblebee gave Bruce an imperious snort, before backing down and the others followed his lead.

Bruce turned back to the agents and was met with incredulous stares all around. He raised a brow. "What?"

"You named a monkey Bumblebee?" Was the first thing asked, and Romanoff turned to glare at the soldier who'd dared to open her mouth.

"Harry named him," he explained with a shrug. If they had known Harry, that probably would have answered the question, but as it was, they only looked more confused.

"Dr. Banner," Romanoff sighed. "Would you please just—"

"Yeah, yeah," Bruce waved his hand and head towards the building. "Give me a couple of minutes."

Without waiting for a response, Bruce jogged up the steps to the apartment, careful to avoid stepping on the tails of any of the lingering monkeys. When he got to their door, he knocked and called out Harry's name first, just to make sure nothing else was going to end up tossed at his head, then took out his key and let himself in.

Harry was waiting at the table, drinking his tea and smiling, chin propped up on his fist. "Finally."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, there was a bit of a situation I had to deal with," he replied, quirking an eyebrow at Harry.

His only response was the grin on Harry's face growing wider.

Hesitating for a moment, Bruce sat down next to Harry and tried to think of an easy way to explain things to him. "So, uh... Listen, buddy, we have to—"

"Do we leave now?" Harry asked, pulling his satchel and a couple of duffel bags out from under his chair.

"Uh, yeah," Bruce grinned, wondering why he even bothered to be surprised anymore. "But, Harry, we're not going east this time. Okay?"

"I know," Harry nodded, his smile turning a little wistful. "We've gone as far east as we need to. Now we have to go back."

"Only for a little while," he assured his friend. "We just have to go with these people because they need my help. But once that's done, then I promise, we'll come back. Or, maybe we'll go farther east? We haven't been to China, yet."

Harry's eyes crinkled and his lips were pursed, as if he was trying hard not to laugh at Bruce's babbling. "We'll see," he told Bruce soothingly and reached over to pat his head.

"Right," Bruce glowered. Standing and grabbing their bags, he nudged Harry out of the chair with his foot, making the younger man laugh. "Come on, Simian, I have a feeling we've got a hell of a trip ahead of us."

Giving Bruce one of those knowing looks that never failed to make him suspicious, Harry skipped ahead of him and down the stairs, laughing again as the monkeys clamored around him.

And, as Bruce was stowing their bags in the back of Agent Romanoff's car and Harry was giving a tearful goodbye to Bumblebee, promising to come back and visit some day, Bruce heard one of the soldiers mutter, "Is that kid wearing a turnip?"

Bruce bit his tongue, knowing they were going to be in for a long flight.


	9. Confusion and Existence

AN: Yes, Bumblebee was named after Dumbledore. Yes, there was poo being flung last chapter. Yes, the painkillers may still be affecting my writing a little.

Also, an important note, PLEASE READ.

Do you know **Sleeping Moon**? Have you read her story 'Wanderlust'? Well, here's the thing, she _is not_ taking my ideas. She is not stealing my story or trying to duplicate it or anything of the sort. Her and I have been talking for a long while, since before either of us posted our stories. And, in fact, I said in my note in the prologue that my idea came to me while talking with her. She asks me for advice on her story and talks about her ideas, and I do the same with her. I have read her story and it is entirely her own, but the very few similarities you may find between our fics are because we're drawing ideas from each other.

There have been a few people badgering her about this, so if you're one of them, please stop. There is no stealing or plagiarism going on, I promise. We're all just here to have fun.

PS: Having some complications with my wrist, that's why this took so long. Well, that and I had to write like five different versions of the Harry&Fury interaction. Seriously, those two did not want to talk to each other. Apologies.

PPS: Nearly three hundred reviews for one chapter? You guys rock. Seriously.

PPPS: Keep in mind, I told you before that Harry's magic is different and it is that way _for a reason_.

* * *

Chapter 7 - When The Captain Is Confused And Harry Ponders The Nature Of Existence

* * *

"She's awfully sepia toned, isn't she?" Was Harry's first observation of Agent Romanoff, as he fiddled with Bruce's glasses.

To her credit, Agent Romanoff only quirked a brow at him, before continuing her situational report to the person on the other end of her phone, who Bruce assumed must be the director. Bruce caught the words 'macaques' and 'outnumbered' and 'projectiles,' before she moved farther down the jet. The fact that she was explaining it all with a perfectly straight face almost made Bruce admire her enough to forgive the fact that she had pointed a gun at his head.

Almost.

"I think being suspicious just comes naturally to them," Bruce explained to Harry, plucking his glasses out of Harry's hands and putting them back on, before returning his attention to the tablet computer in his lap. Dr. Selvig's research notes were...fascinating, to say the least. And more than a little disconcerting. Were they really trying to harness an inter-dimensional portal as an energy source? Apparently, SHIELD's gotten even crazier since he last worked with them.

"Such a shame," Harry murmured, and Bruce looked back up to see Harry watching Agent Romanoff as she scowled at her phone. "Poor little nargle."

"I thought we didn't like nargles?"

Harry had a disgruntled expression, nose wrinkling in distaste. "On principle, no. They're liars and spies and thieves, the whole lot of them. But," he gave Romanoff a considering look, "I suppose there are always exceptions."

Bruce raised a questioning brow, joining him in his observation of the agent—who, by now, had noticed the staring and was sending them suspicious looks in return. "So, she's not a liar, spy, or thief?" He asked doubtfully.

"Oh, no, she's all three," Harry replied, turning to give him an amused grin as Agent Romanoff finished her call and began making her way across the military jet to them. "But, she could be more."

Romanoff took a seat on the bench across from them, her expression mostly blank, but leaning to just this side of either annoyed or amused. Bruce honestly couldn't tell which. "Well, you two have made my life just a little more difficult."

"Our sincerest apologies," Bruce deadpanned.

Harry stayed silent, focusing an intent, unblinking stare upon her.

"I'm sure," Romanoff muttered, staring back at Harry warily.

Bruce shrugged, going back to reading through the analogs of the four-dimensional cube on the tablet, occasionally glancing back up to see them still engaged in their battle of wills. There was a good ten minutes or so of silence, during which Bruce was certain Harry hadn't blinked once, before Romanoff shifted in her seat. Harry didn't seem to recognize this for the victory that it was, but Bruce was certain Romanoff was chastening herself.

"You shouldn't be so midnight," Harry informed her matter-of-factly. "It's too sad of a blue. Makes it too dark to see right. It only shows you shadows."

With those parting words of wisdom, Harry stood and walked up to the front of the jet. He plopped down on the floor between the pilot seats, the occupants of which both turning to give him a startled look, and leaned his head back to stare up at the night sky outside the window.

There was a beat of silence, before Romanoff turned back to him, confusion being the dominant expression behind the stoicism now. She raised her eyebrow at him when she saw him peering at her over the rim of his glasses, trying futilely, again, to see whatever it was that Harry did. Romanoff didn't seem all that upset to him.

Bruce only shrugged once more, offering no explanation and going back to the research notes.

"You know," she started after a few moments of silence, when it became apparent that he had nothing to say on the matter of his friend, "you really surprised us."

He hummed noncommittally, not looking up from the computer.

"When the reports from Paraguay came in," she continued, and he couldn't help the tensing in his shoulders, "your alert status was updated. The agencies were told that you had a companion. We all thought it was probably just a one time thing, maybe just a local that was keeping you company. But, then we saw him with you in Brazil. And then again, in South Africa. And Botswana. And Mozambique, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia..."

"Your point was pretty clear by Botswana," he muttered.

"It surprised us because it went against everything we had in your psychological profile. You traveled to the least populated areas or always made sure there was plenty of surrounding wilderness to escape into. Not just because you were on the run, but also for the safety of the civilians nearby, in case you changed. That has always been your primary concern. You've isolated yourself to the farthest reaches of the globe for years, for the sake of the safety of the people around you."

Bruce finally looked up with a scowl, having an uneasy notion about where this conversation was leading. "You know, I'd expect a SHIELD agent to be a little more subtle in their digging for information."

Romanoff shrugged. "You're a simple man at heart, Dr. Banner. I figured you'd appreciate a bit of candor."

"So, being unsubtle is actually used as a subtle means to get in my good graces and extract information?" He asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

She nodded.

"But, haven't you just ruined it by telling me your game plan?"

"Falls in line with the original intention of being unsubtle," she explained simply with a shrug.

Bruce groaned, pushing his glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose. Circular logic had always annoyed him. Really, give him particle physics over espionage any day. She was eyeing him with definite amusement now, and he scowled at her again. "Could we skip ahead to the end of this conversation?"

"Do you really think he's safe with you? Especially now, as you drag him along with us, to help with a problem that has the potential to end the world?"

"Well, if it's a _global_ catastrophe, he's not going to be much safer anywhere else, is he?" Bruce quipped, trying to ignore the doubt that nagged at the back of his mind every time he questioned if he was doing what was best for Harry. Apparently, those insecurities weren't so carefully hidden.

Agent Romanoff didn't deign to respond, only stared at him expectantly.

Bruce glared back at her defiantly, squaring his shoulders and speaking in a resolute tone. "He's safer with me now, than where ever he was before. I know that."

With that, Bruce went back to Dr. Selvig's research notes, silently declaring the end of that discussion, whether she wanted it to be or not.

* * *

...

* * *

"Just stay here for a moment," Agent Romanoff ordered, after their jet landed on the aircraft carrier. "I'll be back to show you inside, just don't get in anyone's way."

Without another word, she walked off, disappearing into the traffic on the tarmac and leaving Bruce and Harry behind. Both of whom were finding it rather difficult _not_ to get in people's way, as soldiers and agents bustled to and fro along the runway.

Bruce had to apologize twice for bumping someone while trying to walk all of five feet away from the jet. Harry's first instinct, of course, was to go exploring. But, after nearly running into his fourth nargle, he decided the safer option would be to plaster himself against Bruce's back.

"Harry," Bruce groaned as he stumbled, but the death grip Harry had on the back of his jacket only got tighter.

"They're bursting with browns and oranges all over," Harry mumbled, his chin digging into Bruce's shoulder. "The colors are too loud."

They were getting stares from the passing soldiers now, but Bruce was used to that reaction and paid them no mind. "Okay," he said soothingly. "Okay, how about we go get our bags and then we'll just sit tight and wait for Agent Romanoff to come back? Maybe it'll be quieter below deck?"

Harry didn't seem all that mollified, only gave an annoyed huff and clung a little tighter. But, he didn't protest when Bruce slowly began moving them to the back of the jet. The simple action of walking took a good bit of maneuverability with a grown adult attached to his back, but Bruce managed. He's had to develop a very strange répertoire of skills since meeting Harry.

When they got to the ramp at the back, they were met with one of the pilots unloading their duffel bags and handing them to another agent. "Hey, wait, those bags are ours."

The two turned to them and, for a moment, only stared. Probably because Harry was pulling his jacket and shirt almost tight enough to choke and attempting to hide every inch of himself behind Bruce. Small though Harry may be, Bruce wasn't very tall or broad either, so he was failing pretty spectacularly. The agent craned his head and tried to see behind Bruce, while the pilot took pity on them. "All bags need to be run through security first, Dr. Banner. Don't worry, they'll be delivered to your quarters."

He felt one of Harry's hands let go of his jacket, and Bruce imagined it was to reach down and clutch protectively at the satchel wrapped around his shoulders. Bruce angled himself to better hide Harry from the curious agent. "Oh, right. No problem," he said with an easy grin as Harry began tugging him back.

"You might also want to go off to the side, away from the runway," the pilot continued. "I have to taxi the jet and we're going to be strapping everything down."

Bruce nodded, ignoring the questioning looks as Harry continued to use him as a human shield and he walked backwards away from the jet. "Sure thing," he said with a casual little wave and they disappeared around the wing.

Harry relaxed a bit as they got away from the jet, muttering into Bruce's jacket about nargles trying to steal his things.

"So, if anyone asks, they already checked your bag, okay?"

He felt Harry nod against his shoulder as they had to stop short again, as yet another group of agents passed in front of them. Didn't anyone look where they were going here, or did they all just expect everyone else to move out of their way?

"Dr. Banner."

Bruce looked over to see a tall, familiar looking blond man walking towards them with Agent Romanoff, and it took a moment before it clicked. Captain America. The first superhero in history and one of the greatest scientific anomalies. For the love of Newton, do not stutter, he begged himself.

"Oh, uh, yeah, hi." Well done, Banner. "They told me you'd be coming."

Rogers' brow furrowed a bit in confusion as he leaned to the side and tried to see behind Bruce. "And, uh, who's this?"

"Oh, this is my friend, Harry." Craning his neck and twisting a little to the side, Bruce tried to look over his shoulder at the hidden young man. "Harry, this is Captain Steve Rogers. You want to say 'hi?'"

His only response was a disgruntled mumbling and a tighter grip on his jacket.

The captain was looking more bemused by the second and Bruce gave him a little shrug, before addressing Harry again. "You see, it's this little matter called manners. Most of us in civilized society like to have at least a few. But, hey, if you don't want to..."

Harry lifted his head and leaned over to give Bruce a squinty glare, before green eyes caught sight of Rogers. The captain gave a little wave, almost meek under the intensity of Harry's scrutiny. "Huh. Not too bright."

Captain Rogers adopted an appropriately offended expression. "Excuse me?"

"No, no," Bruce hastily tried to clarify, as Harry relaxed enough to come out from behind Bruce, still fixated on Rogers. "He's not talking about your intelligence. He just means..." Bruce faltered, because, well, he's never actually had to explain the colors to anyone before and he really didn't know how. "All of this is really new to him, you know, and there's so much activity. It's all just kind of chaffing him."

"Everyone looks much too loud," Harry confirmed.

"Frantic," Bruce translated.

"But you're quite muted. No sharp bursts from you, just a steady flow," Harry complimented with a smile.

"You seem a lot calmer than everyone else," Bruce added helpfully.

Rogers' eyes were flicking between the two of them like watching a tennis match, before settling an entirely befuddled look on them. "Um, thank you? I do my best to keep a clear head in emergencies."

Harry nodded, his gaze starting to wander as he calmed down from the overwhelming colors. "You balance your purples very well. You've got a cold blue, though. You should work on that."

Rogers looked down at himself, seeing no trace of purple or blue on his person, before staring back at Harry, mouth slightly agape. "...Pardon?"

"Gentlemen," Romanoff interrupted, as a warning came over the ship's intercom. "You might want to step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe."

A siren sounded across the deck, and the three of them looked around in confusion as a rumbling and whirring was heard from the motors. "Is this a submarine?" Rogers asked, looking around in awe at the idea of it.

"Really? They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Bruce scoffed. "Harry—" He stopped, because Harry was no longer occupying the space next to Bruce.

No, instead, Harry was at the very edge of the deck, crouching low and leaning over the side to stare into the sea.

"Hey!" Rogers had caught sight of him as well and in just a few quick strides was by Harry's side, pulling him back. "You could have fallen over," he chided, as Harry glared up at him.

Giving the captain a dismissive snort, Harry focused on Bruce, eyes lit with glee. "I bet there are lots of plimpies down there."

"I don't think we're going down, buddy," Bruce said, looking over the edge. The three of them stared in amazement as the ship's engines slowly began rising _above_ the water. "Oh, no, this is much worse."

"Gentlemen," Romanoff said again, trying to rein in their attention. "Follow me, please."

After helping Harry to his feet, Bruce turned and went after her. The other two men lingered, however, eyes still wide with wonder and gazing around the now flying ship. As he followed her to the main structure, with Harry and the captain trailing slowly behind, he heard Rogers ask Harry, "What are plimpies?"

* * *

...

* * *

"Dr. Banner, I assume I don't have to explain that your friend is going to be your responsibility," Agent Romanoff started, as she led their small group through the corridors. "We can't have an unauthorized civilian wandering around the hellicarrier, for obvious reasons, and keep in mind that there are numerous weapons onboard."

Bruce fought the urge to glare at her. "He's not a child, Agent Romanoff, he'll be fine." She gave him a look, so he conceded. "But, I'll make sure he doesn't touch anything."

There was a sharp _crack_ and they looked back at where Harry and Rogers were standing. Harry was holding the panel that once covered the keypad on the wall next to him, staring at it curiously, until he noticed their attention on him and he quickly shoved it into Rogers' hands. Rogers fumbled a bit in surprise and looked up, seeing where Bruce and Romanoff's gazes where focused. Romanoff raised a brow.

"What— No, I didn't— He—" Rogers aimed a stern, accusing glare at Harry, who had suddenly become fascinated with a light fixture.

Romanoff leveled a flat stare at Bruce.

"I'll make sure he doesn't touch anything _else_," he amended.

With a look that was clearly meant to be his first and only warning, Romanoff turned on her heel and continued down the hall, leading them on. Once her back was turned, Bruce saw Harry snatch the cover back from Rogers, who glowered at Harry reproachfully, and stash it away in his satchel. Bruce made a mental note to talk to Harry about not collecting any broken things from the ship. It would be just their luck if Harry came to scavenge a 'broken' grenade or something.

"All engines operating. SHIELD emergency protocol one nine three point six in effect," Bruce heard one of the agents state as they walked out onto the bridge. Once more, the three men stared around them in awe at the large, open area that was a flurry of activity. "We're at level, sir," the agent informed Fury, who stood at the center of it all on a circular platform.

"Good, let's vanish," Fury ordered.

As Rogers and Harry moved farther into the room, gazing over the rows of computer monitors and out the wall of windows that showed nothing but clouds and clear sky, Bruce subtly scoped out the exits. It was a habit that became well formed while a fugitive, and one he didn't think he'd ever be able to stop. When he noticed that the exits happened to have armed guards, however, Bruce tried to look as casual as possible while quickly turning the other way.

"Doctor," Fury made his way towards him and Bruce tried not to scowl. "Thank you for coming."

Giving an small smile that felt more like a cringe, Bruce shook Director Fury's hand. "Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh, how long are we staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind," Fury assured him.

"No, we're not," Harry stated simply, popping up next to Bruce. His friend aimed a serious expression at him, looking uneasy. "Bruce, I don't think we exist anymore," he said worriedly.

Bruce blinked, biting back a laugh. "No, it's okay Harry. It's just the plane that vanished, not us. It's only so the other people out there don't know that we're here."

Harry narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously. "If they can't see that we're here, then how do we know we really are?"

"We can still see each other, right?" Bruce reasoned with a shrug.

"Huh," Harry thought it through for a moment, before grinning, apparently appeased. "Right. We're flying again, Bruce."

He said it with such childish glee, Bruce couldn't help grinning back, accepting the switch in gears easily. "Yes, we are." Director Fury cleared his throat, and Bruce held off a grimace. "Oh, yeah. Harry, this is Director Fury. He's our, um...host."

Harry blinked and turned to the older man, as if only just noticing that he's been standing next to Bruce this whole time, before scowling and ignoring the hand being held out to him. "You almost made us disappear."

Fury's single visible eyebrow slowly rose as he retracted his hand, before looking at Bruce with a flat stare.

Bruce could only offer a semi-sympathetic shrug. "Well, you kind of did."

Clearly not knowing what to do with that, and likely beginning to doubt Bruce's sanity along side Harry's, Fury seemed to decided a quick change in subject was necessary. "So, you're the one who pulled the Dr. Dolittle act?" He asked, turning back to Harry.

Harry looked to Bruce, obviously confused and waiting for an explanation.

"Bumblebee's troop," he offered.

Mouth opening in a silent 'oh' of recognition, Harry glared back at Fury, unrepentant. "Your monkeys attacked first," he said imperiously.

"Monkeys? You mean the half-dozen highly trained field operatives who were pelted into submission with God knows what?" Fury looked like he may be glaring, but Bruce suspected that might just be the man's default expression, so he wasn't entirely sure.

"To be fair," Bruce tried to appease, "there were like fifty macaques, so they were pretty outmanned."

"What I want to know is _how_ the hell he rallied fifty ma—"

"Where'd your other one go?" Harry interrupted, face slightly scrunched in bewilderment.

Fury stared at him, nonplussed. "What?"

"The other. Eye contact is vital to see the mind, you need the windows to see inside," Harry explained, as if it were obvious. "But, you only have one. Does that mean you only half exist? Only half a mind to see?" He tilted his head a bit and leaned to the side, either trying to see under the patch or maybe wondering if Fury had hidden his eyeball somewhere else.

Fury stood as still as a statue under Harry's observation, not giving an inch as Harry leaned in close, but that was definitely a glare in his eye now. "The hell is he talking about?"

"Uh," Bruce rubbed at the back of his neck nervously. Trust Harry to be annoying the man who really did have the power to make them vanish off the face of the Earth. "He's trying to politely ask where your eye went?"

Fury's hand twitched, as if restraining himself from reaching for his weapon, while Harry continued to focus his unrelenting, unblinking stare upon him.

"You look tangerine," Harry commented after a moment of silence.

"Well," Bruce said a little desperately, as Fury's eye narrowed into an even deeper glare. "How about that Tesseract?"

* * *

...

* * *

Bruce downed the last of his third cup of coffee in the past hour, staring intently at the codes on the computer screen in front of him, while Harry snored softly under the lab table, Bruce's jacket wadded up under his head as a makeshift pillow and clutching his bag like a teddy bear.

The algorithm was coming along nicely and Agent Coulson was already forwarding reports from the spectrometers. With any luck, they wouldn't have to be here very long at all. But, then...

_"No, we're not."_

Harry didn't seem to think they'd be leaving after all this. Or, maybe, they weren't going to be allowed to leave. He'd have to remember to talk to Harry about that when he woke up and while they still had some privacy.

"Dr. Banner." He looked up to see the captain lingering in the doorway of the lab.

"Captain Rogers. Uh, hi." Quickly glancing around, trying to see what or whoever Rogers may be looking for, but finding nothing. "Um, can I help you?"

"Oh, no, I was just—" The captain cut himself off as he stepped into the lab, catching sight of Harry, fast asleep on the floor under Bruce's table. "Is he alright?"

Bruce chuckled at Rogers' look, half worried and half incredulous. "Yeah, he's fine, just tired. It was past midnight when they picked us up in Calcutta and, well, obviously the military jet didn't exactly have a lounge to take a nap in."

Rogers' brow furrowed in concern. "Didn't they give you sleeping quarters?"

"Yeah, just down the hall, but...uh," Bruce hesitated. He knew what everyone was thinking about Harry. It was the same thing that everyone always thought about him. Childish, insane. Mentally deficient, probably. Unbalanced, certainly. This was likely just going to be another tally to check off in the crazy category. "He can't really sleep alone. He's not used to it, and neither am I, really. Every place we've lived has only had one bedroom at the most, sometimes less, so..."

To Bruce's surprise, the captain only nodded. "I can understand that."

"You can?"

"Yes, well, in the war you didn't exactly get a lot of privacy," Rogers explained, a small grin tugging at his lips. "I had to get used to sleeping right beside other soldiers pretty quickly. Now, though, with the apartment they've got me in, I'm..." Alone. "It's, uh, something you have to grow accustomed to."

And that's when it registered. Most people probably didn't think about it, didn't realize that up until just a few weeks ago, this man was in the middle of a war zone, fighting with his comrades. Nevermind the seventy year jetlag. He felt a pang of sympathy in his chest, because he certainly knew what it was like for his life to be turned on its head overnight, and tried to offer up a smile for the other man. "So, how are you settling in? I mean, all this must be pretty new to you."

"You mean, an aircraft carrier that is itself an aircraft? Yeah, that's definitely a new one," Rogers huffed a laugh, still looking half amazed. "All the rest, though, it's still familiar. The military is still the military, and soldiers are still soldiers," he shrugged. "And you? You didn't look too comfortable around the agents before."

"Uh, no. No, people with guns tend to make a little nervous, I'll admit." Bruce pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded to the computers with a small grin. "But, stick me in a lab and I'm in my element."

"Yeah, I've heard a lot about you. Word around here is, if anyone can find the Tesseract, it'd be you," Rogers complimented.

Bruce cringed a little. "Oh? And is that the only word about me?"

"The only word I care about, Doctor."

He said it with such open sincerity, it was difficult not to believe him. Bruce has heard similar declarations before, though, from his fellow scientists when he'd been begging for help in finding a cure. Most people tended to change their minds after meeting the other guy. But, Bruce just nodded. "Thanks."

"I'd better head back to the bridge. Agent Coulson wanted to speak to me about something," the captain said, turning to leave. He stopped at the doorway, however, and looked back at Bruce. "Good luck, Dr. Banner."

It was a couple of moments longer, after Rogers had left, before he felt a tugging on his pants' leg. Bruce scooted his chair back a bit and leaned over to look under the table. "Were you awake that whole time?" He scowled.

Harry gave an unrepentant shrug. "You needed to speak to him."

Bruce raised a questioning eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because he's a piece," his friend stated simply.

"A piece to what?" He asked, brow wrinkled in confusion.

Harry only shrugged again. "You'll see."

"Harry," he sighed. "You know I hate it when you pull the Cassandra routine."

His face scrunching up in disgust, Harry faked a gag. "You think snakes licked my ears?"

Bruce rolled his eyes, sliding off his chair and onto the floor. "You know what I mean." The algorithm was already coded and running. He could take a quick break, he thought, laying down next to Harry.

Harry pushed the folded up jacket over and made room for Bruce. "I'm not a Cassandra. You always believe me."

"Against all reasoning, yeah, I do."

They were silent for another few minutes, simply laying side by side, before Harry spoke up again. "Bruce, you need to be careful."

"Hmm?" Bruce hummed questioningly, turning his head a little to look at Harry's profile.

"Something wicked this way comes," Harry quoted with a little grin that did nothing to hide his concern.

Bruce took a moment to wonder how the hell it was that Harry could remember a line of 'Macbeth,' but not his own surname or birthday, before deciding now probably wasn't the best time to be contemplating that. "What do you mean, Harry?"

"Something bad is going to be here soon," Harry whispered, as if afraid to speak his secrets any louder, lest it call the bad thing to them earlier. "There's too much that can go wrong. It's a scary thought," he confessed.

"Hey," Bruce turned on his side to face Harry fully and his friend followed his example. Staring into the wide green eyes, Bruce willed with everything in his being for his next statement to be true. "Don't be scared. Everything's going to be okay, I promise."


	10. Eyes and Maggots

AN: Apologies for the delay. Those complications on my wrist I mentioned last chapter? Displaced bone fragment pressing on my median nerve. Sounds fun, yeah? No.

Had to have surgery and am now the proud owner of a few pieces of metal under my skin. Also, anesthesia kicks my ass. So, I had to take a couple of weeks off from writing.

And, since I've been getting more people asking about it, **this is not a slash fic**. It still says gen in the summary, so it's gonna stay gen, meaning there are no pairings at all right now or planned in the future. However, also keep in mind that this is a _work in progress_, meaning things change. I've kept the poll up for that reason.

PS: A few of you have mentioned this River character and how Harry reminds you of her. So, curiosity finally getting the better of me, I went and looked her up and found the 'Firefly/Serenity' show/movie. I then spent two days glued to my computer, watching every damn second over and over again. My god, who was the moron who canceled this unfortunately short lived bit of brilliance?

But, no, Harry wasn't inspired by River Tam. Actually, the idea for this Harry came to me while I was reading 'Through the Looking-Glass' with my nephews. More specifically, he was pretty much based off of the White Queen, before I refined him. ;)

PPS: Bruce and Harry's meal was based off of my own experience with MREs. Avoid those things at all cost. Seriously.

* * *

Chapter 8 - In Which The Half-Man Has Eyes And The Nothingness Has Maggots

* * *

Bruce stopped short as he stepped through the lab's door.

Harry had been very busy, it seemed, in the fifteen minutes that Bruce had left him alone to go get their food.

Honestly, he didn't know if he should be impressed or not. Probably not, because he was the one who was supposed to be keeping Harry from doing things exactly like this. But, on the other hand...that was a _really_ tall tower Harry was sitting on top of. He's pretty sure not too many people could build an eight foot tower out of crates, stools, and a bench in fifteen minutes, let alone climb to the top of it without cracking their skull.

Especially one that was tilting so precariously to the side. Before Bruce could even think to move in and help, Harry was shifting his weight and stabilizing his perch, expertly balancing on the peak of his furniture mountain.

"I can see you," Harry was saying to the no longer hidden camera in the corner of the ceiling, scrunching one eye closed and putting the other right in front of the lens, as if trying to find the people at the other end of the video feed.

Bruce stifled a groan. He could only imagine what the director and agents were going to make of this.

"So many eyes for the Half-Man," Harry commented, before turning to Bruce, apparently having been well aware of his presence. "I think he's over compensating."

"Maybe you gave the poor man a complex," Bruce replied, finally stepping farther into the lab and setting down the trays of food on his lab table, which Harry thankfully hadn't used as one of his building blocks. He didn't dare go any closer to Harry's tower, lest he do anything to send it all tumbling down like a house of cards. "Harry, could you get off the Leaning Tower of the Lab so that we can eat, please?"

Harry complied, though with a put upon sigh, swinging down from the chair at the top and the tower gave a warning creak.

"Carefully," Bruce cautioned with a cringe, making Harry pause midway to spare him a look that clearly asked if he was serious. "I know, you got to keep some monkey genes during the evolutionary process, so I really should know better. But, I'm a nervous sort of guy, simian. Humor me, okay?"

With a roll of his eyes and an annoyed mutter about Bruce's continuing doubt in his species, Harry resumed his descent with a bit more care, hopping off the bench on the bottom while the tower swayed perilously behind him. "You really need to relax, Bruce."

"I would, if you'd stop giving me gray hairs," he said, warily eyeing the unstable structure that could mean their crushing demise at any moment. Well, maybe not Bruce's. He doubted a chair could accomplish what a bullet hadn't.

"The chair is steadier than you give it credit for. It knows why it's here and it does what needs doing. It may wobble, but it wont fall," Harry assured him in a serious tone.

It all sounded very profound and Bruce was fairly certain that Harry wasn't quite on the same topic as himself. But, honestly, he was starting to go cross-eyed from staring at computer screens for hours straight and he was just too tired to try decoding another of their multi-layered conversations. "I'll trust it not to kill us while we eat then," he said, motioning Harry to the food.

"Trust is like glue," Harry replied, walking over to the lab table and grinning widely. Grinning, at least, until Bruce pushed the tray over to him and he caught sight of their meal. Harry leaned in close and gave it a cautious sniff, before wrinkling his nose in distaste. When Harry looked back up at Bruce skeptically, Bruce tried to give him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. Judging by the expression he received in return, he probably hadn't been very successful.

Though the canteen personnel had assured Bruce that it was some sort of chili, it could only be described as...oatmeal-ish. It was coupled with a square of cardboard that Bruce thought was meant to be bread, but he had his doubts. He hadn't dared to take the cheese paste they'd offered to go with it.

"Harry," he sighed as his friend poked the probably-not-chili. The mass tried to suck Harry's finger into its depths and Harry quickly tugged it back with a wet _pop_, while Bruce glowered. "Harry, it's just food."

"It's not," Harry denied firmly, eyes wide as he stared at the finger-eating substance. "It's not real."

Silently, Bruce agreed, eyeing the contents of his own bowl dubiously. But, that wasn't going to help any in convincing Harry to eat. "Well, it's real vitamins and nutrients."

"Nothing here is real," Harry lamented, looking down at the floor. "No connection, none of it is real."

Leaning around the table to follow his gaze, Bruce saw Harry curling the toes of his, once again bare, feet against the cold steel floor. It was a familiar motion to Bruce and one of Harry's most common coping mechanisms, to dig his feet into the nearest bit of dirt and grass, as if he was trying to set down roots. Obviously, he wasn't having much luck with the unyielding metal, but the action told Bruce just how badly the stress of the situation was coming to bother Harry. "Hey, buddy, the reflection panels just make us invisible. They don't make us stop existing. Remember, I told you before?" Bruce reminded him gently, attempting to calm Harry's agitation.

"I know the difference between not seen and not there," Harry snapped at Bruce uncharacteristically, with a slight air of superiority, as if invisibility was nothing new to him. Which, considering how often he liked to disappear and reappear on a whim, maybe Harry did consider it a skill of his. "And that's not what I'm talking about. The fake exists just as well as the real, but that doesn't mean it has a presence to it. It doesn't."

"Okay," Bruce tried to soothe. "Okay, it's alright Harry. Look, I'm sorry this place isn't real, but we're not going to be here long, I swear."

Harry settled a bit and the uneasiness in Bruce's chest loosened its tight grip. It had been a long while since Harry had suffered a mood swing like that. "I want the water," Harry said quietly. "Could we do it tonight?"

Bruce winced. They had stopped looking into Harry's memories after too many failures that left Harry more strained than anything, but laying in the water still worked well to calm his mind. If Harry was asking for a bath, then he was probably feeling worse than he was letting Bruce see. "I don't think they've got bathtubs around here, buddy," he said, the apology clear in his voice.

"There's too much, I'm going to overflow," Harry moaned, dropping his head onto the table with a _thud_ and rattling his bowl of not-chili.

Painfully aware of the camera at his back now, Bruce forced himself not to flinch when he reached over to grip Harry's arm and felt a shock of energy jolt through his hand. Harry shifted himself to stare up at Bruce mournfully, his dazed green eyes looking just a bit more vibrant and brighter than normal, and the light overhead flickered ever so slightly. "You're not going to overflow, Harry. You're going to be_ fine_," he stressed, because when Harry wasn't fine, that usually meant power outages and they were on a flying machine being run by electricity. "And once all this is done and we're gone, buddy, I promise you can lay in the water until you turn into a prune. Okay?"

Harry groaned again, squeezing his eyes shut tight, pressing his forehead into the table and mumbling something about wobbling.

"Hey," he gave Harry's arm a comforting squeeze, before reaching up to tug his radish earring and force his attention back on Bruce. Harry turned and one bleary eye peered back at Bruce, the side of his face smushed against the table's surface. Bruce hesitated, because if there was video surveillance, he'd bet there was audio as well. "We are going to be out of here soon...right?" He asked in a low voice.

A grin tugged at the corner of Harry's lips, knowing exactly what Bruce was asking. "Uh huh," he nodded against the table. "Not in the wind, though. Solid structure, on sure ground. Connected. Big presence to it," Harry whispered back, sounding almost nostalgic for a place they hadn't yet been to.

"Well, there you go then," Bruce smiled. "All we've got to do is wait until we get there."

Harry huffed a laugh that sounded more tired than amused. "You make it sound far more simple than it'll be."

Bruce picked up the spork from his tray and pointed it at Harry with a stern expression. "The way I figure it, buddy, we have to deal with enough complications as it is. There's no need to add more." With that, he scooped up some of the not-chili and shoved it in his mouth decisively.

The effect was promptly ruined when he gagged and had to quickly grab his napkin to spit it back out, before chugging back his water in a futile attempt to wash away the taste. When Harry laughed this time, it was with far too much triumph for Bruce's liking.

And, of course, this was the scene that Agent Coulson decided to walk in on.

To his credit, Coulson only stopped to stare for a moment, before walking over and setting a file down on the lab table. "The hard copies of the readouts you requested, Dr. Banner."

"Thanks," Bruce said, in a rather strangled voice. He's jumped out of a helicopter and taken a bullet to the head, but give him a bowl of chili and he nearly chokes to death.

The agent's expression was at least somewhat sympathetic, which was more than could be said for Harry's. "They tend to go a little overboard on the spices," Coulson explained. "For some reason, they think it makes it more palatable."

"You've got a hole in your chest," Harry stated calmly, laughing eyes still lingering on Bruce, though the statement was clearly meant for Agent Coulson.

Bruce held back a shudder and was thankful, at least, that the agent couldn't see Harry's expression. That was not the sort of phrase a person utters so blithely while still amused by something else, but Harry's mind had a habit of being out of sync with most everything else, including his own mouth.

Coulson blinked at the non sequitur, before looking down at himself and actually checking for any extra holes on his person. Because, apparently, SHIELD agents took the phrase 'better safe than sorry' very seriously. "Um, no, I don't think so," Coulson replied slowly, as he gave himself a small patdown. "Nope. No holes in me."

Harry's brow furrowed in confusion, slowly catching up with the conversation, and lifted his head to finally turn and look at the agent. "Oh. Good," he nodded firmly, after giving the man a once over and confirming that there really wasn't a hole. "Keep it that way. Constant vigilance, eyes at the back. Borrow the Half-Man's if you must. He has plenty, he just squirrels them away."

"Will do," Coulson said with a bemused smile and likely not having any idea what the hell Harry was talking about. "Do you need anymore chairs?" He asked, casually nodding towards the tower of furniture in the corner.

* * *

...

* * *

The message was sent out for all personnel to be on high alert.

Fury himself had called ahead to warn him that the group would be passing by the labs and to stay out of the way.

So, it wasn't exactly a surprise when he heard the stomping of a small troop making their way down the emptied corridor. That didn't stop him from staring, though.

He was...not what Bruce was expecting, honestly. A few inches taller than his armed escorts and wearing some very strange garb, but otherwise, he looked perfectly human. Bruce had read the reports on the Asgardians, of course, and knew that apart from the preternatural abilities and slightly larger stature, there wasn't really anything to differentiate them as an alien race. Even still, he'd been expecting a bit more from an otherworldly megalomaniac whose kill count was slowly climbing towards the triple digits. This guy just seemed, well, average.

Then, he turned.

Loki stared at Bruce through the lab windows with a predatory grin, all teeth, and smugness coming off of him in waves and insanity glinting in his eyes, and he definitely didn't seem all that normal to Bruce anymore.

Bruce sucked in a surprised breath when he felt the corks on his necklace heating, a tingling warmth seeping into him through his shirt and soothing him, and in the corridor he saw Loki's grin slowly fall away. The Asgardian's eyes narrowed and flickered to the side, looking past Bruce, and next to him, Bruce heard Harry give a little whimper.

"Harry?" He turned a bit to look at his friend and shifted closer to him, careful to still keep Loki within sight. "You okay?"

He could feel the tension rolling off Harry from were he sat perched on top of the table next to Bruce, knees coming up to be hugged against his chest as he kept his eyes clenched tightly shut. "The aquavirius maggots are chameleons—they make you think it's yours, but it's not. Make you think you're you, but you're not. The Nothingness can devour you whole, make you _It_ if you're in It long enough," Harry warned fearfully, and Loki reached the center of the hall, finally brought in full view of the labs.

Harry's eyes snapped open and locked with Loki's. Bruce's brow furrowed, confused, as Loki's eyes narrowed further and Harry gave a little gasp, before deftly rolling off the table and taking cover underneath. Not quite sure what to make of that exchange, Bruce watched with a cautious gaze as the scowling Asgardian was ushered down the corridor, while trying to subtly angle his head back and keep the labs in his sight.

Once the Norse legend disappeared around the corner, Bruce felt some of the stiffness ease out of his stance, even as a sense of foreboding trickled down his spine. "Listen, buddy," he started, crouching down. "While this guy's around, I want you to stay...close by," he said to the empty space under the desk.

Damn it.

Bruce turned, staying crouched and running his gaze under all the tables and chairs. "Harry," he hissed. "Harry, come on. This is not the best time for your disappearing act." There was, of course, no answer.

When the option of climbing up something wasn't available, Harry's plan B always seemed to be to find the smallest, tightest space around to crawl into. With this in mind, Bruce dropped to his hands and knees and began scouring the lab, peeking behind the crates and machinery, trying to figure out where Harry would have tucked himself away. He hadn't heard the lab doors open, so the younger man had to be around here somewhere, didn't he?

"Dr. Banner?"

Bruce jumped, then yelped as he promptly banged his head on the table he'd been under. "Yeah, what?" He backed out from under the table, rubbing gingerly at his skull, before he looked up to see who his visitor was and cringed. "Oh. Agent Coulson. Uh, hi."

"Hello," Coulson replied, eyebrows slowly climbing upwards. "Do you need some assistance?"

"Um, no. No, I was just..." Bruce mentally juggled all the possible excuses for being found under a desk, before inconspicuously reaching into his pocket and then brandishing his prize triumphantly. "Pen! I was just looking for my pen."

Agent Coulson continued to stare.

"I found it," he mumbled lamely, standing and brushing away some imaginary dust from his pants in an attempt to avoid Coulson's expression. At this rate, people were going to be doubting his sanity more than they did Harry's.

"Right." The agent clearly had some experience with eccentricity and wisely decided not to comment any further than that. "Director Fury is calling together a conference down on the bridge. I have to go supervise our other visiting genius, so I trust you can make your way down there on your own?"

"Yeah, sure. No problem," Bruce said with a reassuring grin.

Agent Coulson seemed a bit skeptical. "And, where is your friend?" He asked, pointedly looking about the otherwise empty lab.

That was a very good question. "Oh, um...bathroom?" So many years as a fugitive should have made him a better liar by now.

Coulson just gave him a look, before shaking his head and turning around to walk out the lab, muttering something about 'Supernanny' as he went.

* * *

...

* * *

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something," came Fury's dry voice over the monitors.

Bruce watched on the video feed as Loki's smirk widened. "No magazine, thank you. But a question, if you'll indulge my curiosity?"

Fury's brow raised. "Ask and we'll see how indulgent I'm feeling."

"Who was the boy?" The Asgardian asked simply. Probably the only straight forward sentence to have come out of the silver tongued mouth yet. "The one with the man turned beast?"

Romanoff shot him another look and the captain joined her in staring this time, while Bruce tensed, his shoulders squaring as if he were bracing for an impact. On screen, Fury observed Loki carefully, giving a thoughtful hum before responding with a smirk of his own. "Well, look at that. Seems I don't feel so indulgent."

Loki's answering chuckle gave Bruce a chill that settled in his bones, before Agent Hill thankfully cut the feed.

Thor turned from the monitors and looked around at them, his expression concerned. "What boy does my brother speak of? You have children on this vessel?"

"Dr. Banner's companion," Romanoff informed the god.

"He's not a child," Bruce muttered.

Rogers seemed to share Thor's concerns, though, and looked at Bruce worriedly. "How does Loki even know about Harry?"

"He saw Harry when they were escorting him to the cell and he passed by the labs." Bruce fought the urge to squirm as all eyes focused on him. He was not at all comfortable with the direction of this conversation.

"And why would he be interested in your friend?" Agent Hill asked, her expression cold and even, as it seemed most every agent's face here was.

"I honestly can't say." And that was the truth, at least. He could only imagine what sort of things Harry had been able to see in the demented Asgardian, but he had no idea what Loki could have seen to draw his attention to Harry. When they continued to stare at him expectantly, Bruce gave a frustrated huff. "Okay, am I the only one thinking that the God of Chaos who intends to rule us might be a bigger point of interest than my perfectly innocent friend?"

Thor, thankfully, nodded in agreement. "He is correct. We have much to prepare for. My brother has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army...from outer space," Rogers glowered, looking more than a little put out. And with good reason, in Bruce's opinion.

The dots started connecting, and Bruce really didn't like what the picture was coming to be. "So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

Thor's brow furrowed. "Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend," Thor replied, worry lacing his voice.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Romanoff explained, with more genuine emotion than he's heard from her before.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," the captain said, trying to get the conference back on track. "He's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can smell crazy on him," Bruce commented, his mouth getting the better of him before he could stop himself. He almost winced once the words passed his lips. While the captain studiously avoided looking in his direction, Romanoff raised her brow and sent him a flat stare.

Thor scowled at him, righteous indignation written all over his expression. "Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother."

Bruce could almost sympathize. He didn't even know how many times he's tried to explain to people that Harry really wasn't crazy. Maybe a little off, maybe seeing the world in a different way than others, but not crazy. He wasn't insane, he wasn't an idiot, and he wasn't a child, yet that was all that people tended to see. But, Harry also wasn't a mass-murdering megalomaniac, so Bruce didn't really think that his and Thor's situations were comparable.

Romanoff, it seemed, was of the same opinion, because her gaze switched to the demi-god. "He killed eighty people in two days."

"...He's adopted," Thor shrugged, at least having the decency to look ashamed for his brother and his actions.

Desperately wanting to get away from this topic, Bruce tried to get the conversation back on point. "I think it's about the mechanics," he explained. "Iridium. What do they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent."

All heads turned to the new voice and Bruce saw _Tony Stark_ coming down the hall and onto the bridge, having a whispered conversation with Agent Coulson. The other visiting genius, Bruce's memory supplied. What the hell did they need Bruce for if they were going to be calling in _this_ guy?

"Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD," Stark continued, confidently making his way to the center of the room and clearly at ease with all eyes on him. He slowed as he passed Thor to give the bemused demi-god a friendly slap on the arm. "No hard feelings, point break. You got a mean swing."

Bruce saw Agents Hill and Romanoff share an exasperated eye roll, as Thor stared after Stark.

"Also means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants," the billionaire said, coming to stand on the platform surrounded by monitors and playfully addressing the SHIELD staff below as if he were king. Or, maybe pirate captain. "Ah, raise the mizzen mast, ship the topsails." Everyone stopped what they were doing for a moment to stare, and Stark took the opportunity to point off to the side and say cavalierly, "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

Rogers leaned forward in his seat with a small frown, apparently trying to see where the slacker was.

Stark covered one eye and twisted about, trying to look at the screens. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns," Hill deadpanned.

"Sounds exhausting," Stark complained as he started messing with the touch screens, his hands in constant motion. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to, uh, kick start the Cube."

Agent Hill stared at him. "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night," he said simply, and Hill tilted her head curiously. "The packet? Selvig's notes? The Extraction Theory papers? Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" The captain asked, quick to cut off the tirade.

Bruce hesitated, fiddling with his glasses nervously, before answering. "He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin, just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless, Selvig figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Stark countered, his attention coming to rest solely on Bruce.

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy-ion fusion at any reactor on the planet." And that would be very bad, Bruce thought with a mental cringe.

"Finally," Stark said, walking over to Bruce, "someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Bruce heard Rogers mutter.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," the other scientist said with sincerity, reaching out to shake Bruce's hand. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce paused, giving a quick glance over at the others, waiting for someone to tell him the man was joking. No one did. "...Thanks."

"I feed him lots of broccoli," Harry said, popping up from under the table next to Rogers.

The captain let out an unfortunately high-pitched yelp and jumped out of his seat.

This, Bruce was sure, is what inevitably endeared his friend to Stark so quickly.

"Woah! Pop goes the stowaway!" Stark exclaimed, as Harry disappeared back under the table and everyone stared wide-eyed.

Bruce sighed. "He's not a stowaway."

"Oh?" Stark raised a brow and glared over at Romanoff. "Since when has SHIELD been in the business of taking on kids?"

"And he's not a kid," Bruce groused for what felt like the hundredth time.

"He's not one of ours, either," Romanoff said, glaring back.

Rogers crouched down and looked under the table at Harry in concern. "Harry, are you alright?"

"Yes," was Harry's simple reply. "I have a cactus."

Bruce followed the captain's example and kneeled down next to the large conference table, moving the chairs out of the way, and saw the others doing the same. Harry did indeed have a cactus and was hugging the pot to his chest with one arm, while his other hand idly played with the dirt and his satchel sat in his lap.

"Oh," Rogers said, expression confused and clearly not understanding what the plant had to do with the matter at hand. "...Okay."

"Is that _my_ cactus?" Agent Hill growled.

"Harry," Bruce sighed, mentally shuffling through all the questions this situation garnered, before settling on one. "Why do you have Agent Hill's cactus?"

Harry grinned and looked down at the potted plant fondly. "Because it's real."

"Right," drawled Stark, sounding more than a little lost. "Now, who is this kid?"

On the other side of the table, Bruce could see Thor staring at Harry curiously. "Is this the boy my brother wished to know of?"

In the center of the floor under the table, Harry fidgeted at the sudden influx of attention being fixed on him and sent Bruce a disconcerted look. Bruce sent back a comforting smile, but it didn't seem to help much, given the way his friend hugged the pot a little tighter.

"Dr. Banner, would you mind telling me why Loki—" The heavy tread Fury's boots stopped as the director reached the bridge and he was silent for a second as he took in the scene before him. "Why the hell are you all on the floor?"

Rogers and the agents quickly stood at attention, and Bruce looked over his shoulder to see Fury glaring at the lot of them, waiting for an explanation.

Which Romanoff quickly provided. "Dr. Banner's companion was hiding under the table during the briefing, sir."

"Under the table? The entire time? And nobody noticed?" Fury asked, tone cold and annoyed.

Romanoff and Hill shared a quick, subtle glance, each likely wondering the same thing.

Fury's glare rounded on Bruce. "Doctor, your friend is beginning to concern me."

"Trust me," Bruce said dryly, "you concern him, too."

Fury glowered, ignoring Stark's snort of laughter, and leaned over to look under the table. "Get out," he ordered.

Harry's response was to bare his teeth at the director like a dog.

Bruce fought the urge to cover his face. "Harry, please."

With an exasperated sigh that told them all exactly how tedious he thought they were being, Harry did as Bruce asked and slowly crawled out from under the table, dragging the cactus and his satchel out behind him. Bruce stood along side Harry, and his friend sent him a questioning look. "Have you told them about the maggots, yet?"

Everyone stared at the two of them, and Bruce raised a confused brow at Harry.

"The aquavirius maggots," Harry explained, "in the Nothingness' brain."

"Uh, right... We'll talk about that later." Because Bruce had yet to decode that one. "Now, could you give Agent Hill back her cactus?"

With yet another sigh, Harry dutifully handed Hill the potted plant, though he gave her a reproachful glare as he did. "It was very lonely, you should treat it better."

Hill took the plant, carefully _not_ commenting on Harry's reprimand, and frowned at it suspiciously. "I don't remember it being this big before," she mumbled.

Fury cleared his throat, drawing Bruce and Harry's attention back to him and raised his eyebrow at them. "Care to explain, Dr. Banner?" He asked, clearly leaving the question open as to what, exactly, it was that needed explaining in this whole situation.

Bruce could only offer a somewhat sheepish shrug. "Not particularly, no."

"He's looking rather magenta," Harry commented.

"From what I remember, he gets irritated easily," Bruce informed him. "Don't worry about it, buddy."

Bruce heard a snort and looked over to see Stark's face turning red from the strain of holding in his laughter, while Fury's glare had reached volcano-freezing proportions.

"Shut up, Stark."

"Yes sir, Director Magenta," came the prompt reply.

Bruce had a feeling this introduction could mean the end of his sanity.


	11. Interlude: Moon and Darkness

AN: You guys have no idea how friggin' sorry I am. I honestly did not mean to disappear and leave you lot hanging. There was just a bunch of real life getting in the way and keeping me from my lovely audience. Seriously, I haven't even been able to sit down at my computer and do anything that wasn't work/school related in over a month.

But, on the plus side, because so much time has passed, my wrist is almost completely healed. I'm half way through physiotherapy. It's going to be another month or two before I can have surgery to remove to metal bits in my bones, though. (Which is actually a completely optional thing, but I really don't want to have to deal with the hassle at airports and such. That, and it's one of my nightmares that I'll end up in a hospital one day and they won't know about the plate and screws and try to give me an MRI...)

So, anyway, here's another little Harry interlude that I wrote up last night to keep you entertained while I start writing the real next chapter. I'm hoping to have it up by the coming weekend, but please don't hold me to that. I'm horrible with meeting deadlines.

* * *

Interlude - Where In There Is The Moon And The Darkness

* * *

Once upon a time, there was the darkness.

It was dim and luminescent, and silent and ambient, and still and kinetic. It was everything and nothing, all the extremes and all the inbetweens. There were creeping terrors and crawling horrors. There were all the things that you never want to know, all the things that grab hold and never let go.

It was darkness and from within it come the things. The things that whisper in your ear all that you and no other were ever meant to hear, and flash before your eyes what you and no other were ever meant to see.

And, oh, how it made you want to scream.

* * *

_I see the moon, the moon sees me,  
__Under the shade of the old oak tree.  
__Please let the light that shines on me,  
__Shine on the one I love._

* * *

It's all so orange.

It's gold and it's umber and it's burning, like the sun's come too close and the world's on fire and the drums are pounding in your brain. The girl curled in on herself next to you is shaking, like the drums are reverberating through her core, and she's so, _so_ _orange_. Same as all the others in the room, huddled together and whimpering.

Bruce is there, you think. You hope. You're sure, because only Bruce has that shade of cerise, too much red still, not yet the byzantium he'll become.

He's there, trying to soothe, trying to explain away the raging of the world outside, like people are wont to do.

Trying to explain that monsoons are the norm here and that they were prepared. Trying to calm, you and him both, but his yellows were too bright for his words to do any good while he murmured promises and platitudes.

Everything's going to be okay, Bruce promises. Don't be scared.

You imagine the storm you find howling inside these walls must be doing more damage than the one outside.

Don't be scared, Harry.

* * *

_Over the mountains, over the sea,  
__Back where my heart is longing to be.  
__Please let the light that shines on me,  
__Shine on the one I love._

* * *

Twice upon a time, there was the moon.

She shone high, casting herself across the dark like a cool blue balm, like a soothing melody that scared all the things away. Driven to the cover of the shadows, the things that spoke and showed what they ought not to.

The moon whispers words of her own, stories of what once was, memories lost to you in the darkness. Faces and places that slip through your grasping fingers. Pieces missing from the broken images that used to belong to you.

But the moon speaks and sings and soothes, and for the moment, it's enough.

* * *

_Under the sun and through the trees,  
__Hear the whispers in the breeze.  
__Please let the light that shines on me,  
__Shine on the one I love._

* * *

Don't be scared, Harry.

The stars were bright and the sky was clear and the world glowed an astral blue under the watchful moon.

Now Orion, Bruce says. Orion was a great and mighty hunter, a hero to the Greeks. And a dear friend and lover to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and wilderness.

Apollo, Artemis' twin, was jealous of the attention the Orion received from his sister and sent a great scorpion to kill the hunter. Torn with grief, Artemis begged her father Zeus to place him in the sky, among the most brilliant of the stars, where he could be viewed by all for eternity, chasing the hare Lepus with his hunting dogs. She wanted him to never be forgotten, to always be looked to by the people for guidance and protection in the night.

So, to honor Orion, Zeus placed him facing the mighty charging bull, Taurus.

Afterwards, not to be slighted, Apollo insisted that his scorpion be placed in the sky as well, to mark the downfall of the mightiest hunter.

Zeus agreed, but put the scorpion far away on the opposite end of the sky, so when one rises, the other will always set. He also took Sagittarius the Archer and set him next to the scorpion, his arrow aimed firmly at the scorpion's heart, so that the scorpion could never try to make its way over to Orion. So that Orion would always be protected, always there to guide the travelers through the dark.

And the stars were bright and the sky was clear, not a cloud to be seen.

We should keep an eye out, Bruce says. The calm before the storm.

Don't be scared.

* * *

_I see the moon, the moon sees me,  
__High in the sky as I give my plea.  
__Please let the light that shines on me,  
__Shine on the one I love._

* * *

Once upon a time or twice upon a time or all the times together, there was the darkness and there was the moon.

And for a time, that was your world. Your one and your only, your everything and anything, the tug between one and the other.

Now, in this time, there are stars and skies and clouds and storms. And Bruce. One Bruce, singular. The only that there has ever been and will continue to be, you're sure.

Everything will be okay, he promises. Has promised. Will promise again.

Sometimes, you wish he could see. You wish he was shown and whispered to, could see and hear as you do. Wish he could know what he was promising, what he asked of you. Don't be scared, Harry.

But then, well, where Bruce couldn't see, he could understand.


	12. Spongy and Shiny

AN: Right...so, er...let's just say I was otherwise indisposed. I'd rather not go into details.

I really am so very sorry about the delay, but let me say first and foremost, **this story is not now, nor will it ever be, abandoned**. I have never left one of my stories unfinished before and I don't plan on starting with this one. Even if it might be taking me much longer than I would like, this story will be completed.

So, for those of you wondering, no, I didn't make up the song '_I See The Moon_.' It's a lullaby that my godfather used to sing to me. I've never been able to find it on the 'net or anything though, so it might be that _he_ made it up, or maybe it's just a really old folksong or something. I dunno.

And, in case you didn't notice, it is also the lullaby sung in parts 2 and 7.

PS: I noticed that a lot of you seem rather confused about Harry's little interludes. That's okay, so is he.

Harry's mind isn't exactly the clearest point of view to have. The interludes are supposed to make you feel jumbled and off kilter, because that's how Harry feels. Maybe at the end of the story, when more has been revealed, you'll be able to come back and read them again in a new light, but for now...just embrace the insanity.

Though, I will remind you, I did base Harry off of the White Queen. Think of how the White Queen's memory works, backwards _and_ forwards. 'Once upon a time or twice upon a time or all the times together,' remember? **The interludes don't really take place at any specific point in the story's timeline.** So, knowing that, keep in mind that this part takes place immediately after part 10 'Ch. 8 - In Which The Half-Man Has Eyes And The Nothingness Has Maggots.'

PPS: I couldn't figure out how to include the flying monkey bit. I feel I must apologize for this.

* * *

Chapter 9 - In Which The Iron Man Is Spongy And Asgardians Are Shiny

* * *

"What are you, a Skittle's spokesman?" Was Stark's response to Harry's complaint about his reds, and really, he should try to be a bit more aqua, maybe a little marine. "Do you taste the rainbow?"

Harry blinked.

"No, nothing?" Stark asked, looking disappointed that his wit wasn't being properly appreciated. "Interior decorator, then? Because, let me tell you, Spring colors do nothing for me. I am definitely more of an Autumn."

Harry's attention seemed to have wondered somewhere mid-sarcasm, however, and his gaze had ended up locked onto the unfortunate Norse god. While the deity stared back warily, Harry casually began inching his way over, easily forgetting the billionaire's existence, much to Stark's indignation.

Stark turned to Bruce, brow furrowed. "No offense, really, but I think the kid might have lost a couple of marbles."

"Boy doesn't have enough marbles in his head to make a rattle," Fury scoffed.

Stark raised an eyebrow at Fury's not-quite-hidden hostility. "Wouldn't that technically make him brain dead?"

"Harry and his marbles are fine," Bruce interrupted. Stark and Fury both stared at him skeptically, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the Captain trying to pull Harry back away from a rather skittish looking Thor. "He's not crazy and he's not a child, alright? I'll admit, he's a little odd, but—Harry, please stop trying to taste the god of thunder."

Harry stilled, tongue stuck out, while a bewildered Thor carefully held him at arm's length with a firm hand on top of his head.

The tongue was quickly drawn back in as Bruce fixed him with a stern look, and Harry stared at him from under the deity's large appendage. "He's very shiny," Harry explained defensively. "Too much, everything all together, all at once. Like a rainbow, so..."

This time, Bruce didn't resist the urge to palm his face, if only to avoid the triumphant look on Stark's. He made a mental note to have a talk with the man about watching what he said around Harry. His friend had a habit of taking things rather literally.

"Doctor Banner, may I inquire, where precisely did you come upon your young friend?" Thor asked, still staring at Harry as Rogers gently shooed him back over to Bruce, like a stray pup.

"Uh, Paraguay," Bruce answered, just as Fury did the same, much to Bruce's annoyance.

"And that is of this realm?" The demi-god continued to question, looking more confused by the moment.

Not quite comfortable with Thor's curiosity or where it was leading, Bruce carefully maneuvered himself in front of Harry. Judging by the look Fury gave him, he recognized the motion for what it was. "Yeah," Bruce said slowly, keeping a wary eye on the Asgardian. "Paraguay is on Earth."

"Why are you so interested?" Said Fury, giving voice to the question Bruce didn't want asked.

"Your companion," Thor started hesitantly, brow furrowed and head tilted to stare around Bruce, at Harry. "He is rather..._peculiar_."

Bruce couldn't help but bristle at that—as if the alien, ancient Norse god or not, really had any room to speak. Surprisingly, however, it was Stark who came to their defense before Bruce could even open his mouth.

"Oh, you're one to talk about strange companions. Isn't there an eight-legged horse of dubious origin running around up there in Asgard?" Stark asked pointedly from where he stood beside Bruce and Harry, smirk firmly in place.

The very large, very powerful deity blushed and studiously avoided looking anyone in the eye. "We do not speak of it."

Stark let out an undignified snort. "Oh, yeah, I bet."

Ever the peacekeeper, the Captain was quick to step between the two, as Thor's gaze turned stormy and Tony's smug. "Let's try to keep our focus on the real situation at hand, please, gentlemen."

"Dr. Banner, perhaps now would be the time to show Mr. Stark to the labs. He'll be helping you on your search for the Tesseract," Fury said pointedly.

Stark gave a little eye roll, but grinned at Harry and him all the same. "Shall we go play?"

In response, Harry grabbed his and Stark's arms and pulled them to the exit, quick to get far away from Fury, it seemed. Much to Bruce's embarrassment, as he dragged them to the labs, Harry excitedly babbled to the startled looking billionaire about Bruce's genius and his own problems with reds, much like Stark's, but really, it's okay because purples have room for a lot of blues to balance them out.

Of course, Harry forgot where he was going about half-way down the hall, but Stark seemed to appreciate the inclusion all the same.

* * *

...

* * *

"So, where should we start?" Stark asked, stripping off his suit jacket and tie as he went, tossing them carelessly to the side. He walked through the lab as if he owned it, much like he had walked onto the bridge and down the corridor, actually. Bruce suspected the guy must walk in to the men's room like he owned that too, but for the life of him, Bruce couldn't really imagine anybody wanting to boast about that.

"Uh..." Bruce glanced back at Harry, who was ignoring them and scowling at the corner where his tower of furniture had once resided, obviously having been dismantled in their absence. He had been so eager to show the eyes to Stark, too. "Right. Well, um, I'm getting regular readings from spectrometers at practically every major lab, scanning for gamma radiation, and I've got a program running to—"

"I'm thinking the necklace," the billionaire interrupted, unbuttoning his dress shirt and tossing it in the general direction of the jacket and tie, leaving him in the black rock band shirt underneath.

Bruce really hoped that's where the stripping ended. "I'm sorry...?"

"I mean, granted, it's not as weird as a turnip in your ear—which, by the way, not many can pull off a decorative root vegetable. Kudos, kid." Stark leaned around Bruce to give Harry a curious look, which went completely unnoticed, before turning back to Bruce and raising an eyebrow. "But, seriously, corks?"

He gave a quiet sigh, taking off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Latest fashion. All the rage in Calcutta," Bruce deadpanned. Which, unfortunately, only seemed to make Stark even more amused. "Now, could we—"

"Please, JARVIS is assimilating your data and doing the other science-y stuff already," Stark said, waving a dismissive hand towards the computer monitors and continuing on before Bruce had a chance to ask who the hell Jarvis was. "Which gives us plenty of time to bond. I mean, come on, big guy. Who else are you going to find on this ship that speaks the same language as you?"

Bruce raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"Seriously though, you shouldn't deny my curiosity. It never ends well for people. Ask SHIELD," Stark commented casually, leaning against the lab table.

"I'm just here to work, Mr. Stark," Bruce reaffirmed through clenched teeth. If Stark noticed Bruce's growing annoyance, he didn't show it. "I just want to do my job and then get as far away from here as possible. Other than that, I really don't see how anything else is—"

"Radish."

Bruce paused, tirade interrupted, and caught Stark's equally confused expression, before they both turned to look towards Harry. His unblinking gaze, now at least somewhat focused, had switched from the camera and on to them at some point.

Stark quirked a brow at him. "...What?"

"Radish. Not a turnip. Used to have two, but only the one now. I'm a little off balance," Harry tugged on his scarred lobe ruefully, and Bruce could practically see Stark physically restraining himself from commenting on that sentence. "It's to keep away the wrackspurts. Creeping little things, they'll crawl right inside your head, you know?"

"Right," Stark drawled, nodding with a contemplative look, then turned to Bruce. "What?"

Bruce just shrugged, feeling rather unsympathetic. Stark was the one who was curious, after all.

"The corks are for the nargles—helps him with the reds to keep them off the trail. Not that it does much good here," Harry scowled, casting a jaundiced eye at the lab windows where the SHIELD agents could be seen walking about, shooting the occasional glance their way. "You've gotta be careful of the reds though, yeah. Let one too many spark and they'll...they'll burn you. Right up, from the inside out..."

Harry trailed off slowly, gaze gradually focusing and narrowing in on Stark, as if only just noticing him for the first time. Bruce could see Harry's eyes flicking down at his chest, up to Stark's, then down at his own once more and back again, his expression alternating between bewilderment and excitement. Like he's found a strange new toy, Bruce thought with a feeling not unlike dread crawling up his spine.

Stark seemed oblivious to the danger he was in and made the mistake of taking his eyes off Harry, turning to Bruce. "You wouldn't happen to come with a handy dandy translator, would you Doc?"

"Seemed pretty clear to me," Bruce said casually, shrugging again and trying to fight off the amused smirk that was tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Judging by the squinty glare Bruce got in return, he hadn't been very successful.

Stark turned his attention back to Harry and started when he realized that the younger man was less than an inch away, wide eyes fixated on his chest. "Whoa! Personal space bubble, kid." He took a few quick steps back and Harry followed. "Uh, Doc?"

"Harry?" Bruce took a step towards him, slowly reaching a hand out to touch his arm, trying to get his friend's attention. Harry paid him no mind, though, focused entirely on Stark's center mass. "You okay, buddy?"

"Where's it all going?" Harry murmured softly, oblivious to Stark's discomfort as he leaned in closer, face scrunched in concentration. "Swirling away and in and gone. Sucked right down and gone... Like a—sucked up, like a _sponge_."

"Seriously, kid, you're freaking me out." Stark twitched nervously, looking to Bruce for help.

Harry reached out and tapped the center of Stark's chest, a metallic _ting_ echoing in the silent lab. "You're better than a cactus," Harry concluded in hushed awe.

"Yeah, I know a lot of people who would disagree with you there."

* * *

...

* * *

Bruce was considering a leash.

He remembered back before his accident, and subsequent fugitive status, baby leashes were becoming quite popular. Strap the kid in a harness, clip on a lead, and take a stroll down the street. Of course, trying to find one in Harry's size might end up with him shopping from some...specialized stores, which would be just plain awkward.

That, and it would kind of defeat the purpose of him constantly trying to convince people that Harry was not a crazy child.

Be that as is may, if Bruce had invested in a leash, he probably wouldn't currently be sneaking through the halls of SHIELD's flying fortress, trying to look like he belonged, and _not_ thinking about how many guns these people had or how eager they always seemed to be to use them. Given the number of curious glances he'd gotten so far, he wasn't sure he was succeeding. Then again, no one had stopped him yet and no alarms had been raised. Maybe this spy thing was easier than he'd thought?

Either way, it was only a matter of time before someone else realized Harry was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, so Bruce knew he needed to find him quickly. Harry wasn't in the break room, where he had trailed in after Bruce, humming quietly to himself and not planning a grand escape, so far as Bruce was aware. He wasn't in the lab, Stark had confirmed with a look of intrigue, which made Bruce a bit twitchy. Bruce may have only known him for a few hours, but if was fairly obvious that becoming a subject of interest to that man was not conducive to keeping secrets.

Ruling out the obvious areas, though, had left Bruce floundering a bit. He had no idea what would have drawn Harry away from the safety of Bruce's shadow, especially with the rampant nargle infestation around here. Well, actually, Bruce did have some idea. But, Harry wouldn't—

Bruce stopped short in the middle of the hall and sighed. Yeah, Harry would. He really, really would.

Feeling a coil of tension tighten in his belly, Bruce turned and started making his way towards where he'd seen the guards escorting Loki.

It took a bit of snooping and sneaking, but he found the abandoned hall leading into the containment cell. Seemed like the agents were avoiding the area and, given what Bruce knew about Loki's skills in manipulation, he couldn't say he blamed them. The sight of the unlocked door, left wide open for all the world to enter, made Bruce groan. He hoped Harry hadn't caused any permanent damage.

He hadn't been sure what exactly to expect when he walked through the door, but he'd be the first to admit that he was a worrier, especially when it came to Harry. So, while he may have been building a list of worst case scenarios in his head, he really had no idea why Harry would want to be here. Staring contest hadn't made the list though, that's for sure.

Harry stood on the ramp in the center of the room leading to the circular glass cell, only just shy of touching it. His gaze was more focused than Bruce could remember ever seeing, his expression serious and intent and fixed firmly on Loki. The god of chaos stood opposite of him, mirroring Harry's expression behind the glass, with the exception of the smirk curling his lips.

Bruce crept into the room slowly, carefully edging around the cell that most likely would have been his own, were it not already occupied. He cast a glance upwards, searching for the cameras that he knew must be watching their every move, silently wondering why they hadn't already been escorted out at gun point. He really hoped Harry hadn't accidentally shorted out SHIELD's security system or something.

He made his way over to the pair, coming to Harry's side. His friend didn't seemed to notice his arrival, though.

"Hmm," Loki's smirk grew, his gaze still solely on Harry and cold amusement coating his voice. "Seems your beast has come to join us."

Bruce bit back a snarl and felt his necklace warming up, as if in response to his anger, sending a gentle comforting heat up through his chest. "Harry? You okay, buddy?" He reached out a hand to grip Harry's arm tight, trying to make his presence clear, but still, Harry didn't move or speak.

Loki's eyes flicked over to him, interest lighting in the icy depths. "Ah, so that is what you have done. Tamed the mindless creature, have you, child?"

"Harry?" Bruce said again, voice growing firmer and grip tightening a bit more.

"Oh, but it is such a waste, is it not?" The demi-god all but crooned to Harry. "All that power, so eager to be unleashed, and you hand him a shackle for it?"

"You've grown dim," Harry whispered, voice quiet and fierce, cutting through Loki's questions. He shifted his stance a bit, bracing himself, and reached down to grip the strap of his satchel tightly, as if for comfort.

In a split second, Loki's features shifted—from the distant, chilled guile to something menacing, biting and...alien. His eyes narrowed on Harry, mouth turning downwards into a scowl. "Say again, child?"

"Dim and blind and blank," Harry said, not cowed in the slightest by the other, his voice growing stronger as he spoke. "The lighter one is blinding, in that he's too bright to see, but not you. You've lost your colors. You never came back out of the dark."

Loki seemed to freeze, body and face both motionless as he stared into Harry, and Bruce couldn't help but hold his breath in anticipation.

After a beat of silence, Loki forced himself to relax, donning once more the frigid mirth that he utilized as both an armor and weapon. Placing his hands on the glass, he leaned in close and studied Harry through the barrier, gaze intent and piercing. He seemed to find what he was looking for, because only a moment later a wide cheshire grin was dominating his face, lips pulled back to show off his sharp, white teeth.

Bruce couldn't help taking a step back on instinct. He tried to pull Harry behind him, but the younger man wouldn't budge.

"Oh ho!" Loki crowed, delighted. "You are broken!"

Harry tensed and Bruce heard his breath catch in his throat, only a strangled noise escaping.

"Oh, yes, you have been cracked open, haven't you? Like a split dam, and you suffer the flood—nowhere to channel it and no way to stem the flow." Loki gave an impish smile and chuckled. "Does your little fiend know what you are? Do you even know, anymore?"

"Alright, stop it," Bruce glowered at the demi-god, and once more tightened his hold on Harry and tried to drag him back. "Harry, we need to go now."

Harry didn't give an inch, though, as if he had cemented himself in place.

"It's gone dark behind your eyes and you can't even see!" Harry nearly shouted. "The maggots squiggle and squirm inside your skull and they spread like a sickness. They take everything and leave nothing for you to call your own, and you don't see it. You're left with nothing inside—you're empty. You got caught by the Nothingness and now you mimic it."

Loki's arms dropped to his sides and he backed away from the glass slowly, staring at Harry. The corners of his lips twitched upwards, a weak imitation of his previous glee. "The things I could do with something like you," he whispered.

"Harry," Bruce's voice came out in a low growl. "We're leaving. Now."

When he pulled Harry this time, he stumbled, falling against Bruce and looking up at him with a startled expression. Bruce was sure Harry had probably only just realized that Bruce had been beside him.

"Oh," Harry blinked at him, wide-eyed. "Hello."

"Hello," Bruce huffed out a soft laugh, before tugging him towards the door. "Come on, buddy."

Bruce could feel Loki's eyes following them as they walked away from the cell.

The trip back to the lab was quick and quiet, as Bruce focused on keeping as many agents as possible from seeing them and Harry silently trailing after him. It didn't give him nearly enough time to sort the chaos that Harry and Loki's tête-à-tête had brought to his mind. He'd always had questions where his young friend was concerned, but he kept them to himself, pushed them to the side. There was never any point in asking, when Harry couldn't even remember the answers.

Now, though, he couldn't quite help it. The questions were running rampant.

The moment they stepped through the door, Stark pounced.

"You," Stark started, pointing to Bruce, "suck at being sneaky. Seriously, how did you stay on the run for so long?"

Bruce didn't have an answer for that—he'd wondered the same thing often enough.

Stark didn't wait for a response, however, and shifted his attentions to Harry. "But you, you're like a little ninja. How the hell did you get into that room?"

Harry shrugged. "This ship isn't real, so it's easy to ignore the walls."

Stark blinked. "Right. Well, I know I make things look easy, but it's actually a pain in the ass, hacking SHIELD's security and looping their feeds without them noticing. Given all my hard work, I think I've earned story time."

"The Half-Man's going to be angry if you keep taking his eyes," Harry muttered, glaring up at a corner where one of the many cameras were probably hidden.

"And can we start with getting me a translator?"


End file.
